also, he was glad amendments had been proposed; but he thought Virginia should do as Massachusetts and the other States had done, adopt the Constitution as it was, and then prepare their amendments. He thought by telling the other States that, unless they adopted their amendments, they would not give their sanction to the Constitution, it would appear as undoubtedly it would have done "like dictation ;" and perhaps also he did not altogether like the amendments which the convention proposed, being, as he said, "a friend to the liberty of all men," "without any other distinction than between good and bad men;" and the amendments prepared by the convention had inserted the word "freemen," in speaking of rights to be enjoyed under the Constitution, by which a distinction would have been made between a slave and a person who was not. He may have been desirous that distinction should not be made in the Constitution; and we shall find it was not.

Mr. Henry, speaking of the requisition to be made for troops by the United States, and that they would be apportioned according to the number of "blacks" as well as "whites," asked, "how oppressive and dangerous must this be to the South, who alone have slaves? This will render their proportion infinitely greater than that of the Northern States. It has been openly avowed this shall be the rule. I will appeal to the judgment of the committee, whether there be danger."1

1 Elliot's Reports, vol. ii. p. 241.

It is mortifying to see and know how completely the North has been taken in, in all her attempts to secure herself from the effects of slavery. Patrick Henry here thought this call for men to defend the country would require a much larger proportion of the white men of the South than of the North; and, if men for our army and navy were raised in the manner contemplated in the Constitution, it would undoubtedly have been found, by the burden it would have put on their shoulders, to have been too great for them. But the course pursued is, no requisitions are now made; most, if not all, of our army and navy are composed of volunteers, and of northern men. The southerners, accustomed to be masters, are too lazy to do the drudgery of an army; even the defence of their own territory falls on northern men. And when, from the nature of the case, their presence is thought to be absolutely necessary, as in the case of the Florida war, they refuse to do the ordinary work of soldiers; such, for instance, as carrying their own provisions. We are surprised any of our northern men will do it for them, consent to be their lackeys, merely for the sake of laying their bones among the everglades of that Territory; for there seems to be no other object; at least, none other has as yet been attained. as Mr. Giddings, of Ohio, in his late speech in congress, has said, this whole war was nothing but a negro hunt. We trust our northern people will not be seen as soldiers in company with such a banditti, whoever may be their captain-general.

But,

Mr. Henry, speaking of the power to call forth the militia, said, —

"The 10th section of the 1st article, to which reference has been made by the worthy member, (Mr. Grayson,) militates against himself. It says, 'No State shall engage in war, unless actually invaded.' If the country be invaded, a State may go to war, but cannot suppress insurrections. If there should happen to be an insurrection of slaves, the country cannot be said to be invaded. They cannot therefore suppress it, without the interposition of congress. The 4th section of the 4th article expressly directs that, in case of domestic violence, congress should protect the State, on application of the legislature or executive; and the 8th section of the 1st article gives congress power to call forth the militia to quiet insurrections. There cannot, therefore, be a concurrent power. The State legislatures ought to have the power to call forth the efforts of the militia when necessary. Оссаsions for calling them out may be urgent, pressing, and instantaneous. The States cannot now call them, let an insurrection be ever so perilous, without an application to congress: so long a delay may be fatal."

"There are three clauses which prove, beyond a possibility of a doubt, that congress, and congress only, can call forth the militia. The clause giving congress power to call them out to suppress insurrections, &c. that which restrains a State from engaging in war, except when actually invaded, and that which requires congress to protect the States against domestic violence, render it impossible that a State can have power to intermeddle with them."1

It would appear Mr. Henry thought that con

1 Elliot's Reports, vol. ii. p. 315.

gress had taken from the States all power to suppress an insurrection, and had made it a national affair. Though not true as regards the power of a State to suppress an insurrection of its inhabitants, yet it is true that, when a State calls on congress for assistance in case of an insurrection, she is bound to give it; and consequently can it be said the subject of slavery is sectional, not national ? that the States have alone the right to legislate on the subject? Such a supposition cannot be true. Congress must have control over the subject, unless it be said, and with truth, that the States have a right to involve the country in a civil war, by their practices and laws, without any national interference. Will any statesman say that this may be the case? We think not. So long as each and every part of the country alike are bound to suppress an insurrection of slaves, so long do we hold it that slavery is a national affair; and the North may not now hide herself, under the idea that she has no concern with the subject. An acquaintance with our history would make it apparent that such an attempt on her part would be like the foolish ostrich, who, when she is pursued, and finds she cannot escape, or being unwilling to be the witness of her own disgrace, thinks to evade her pursuers, or be shielded from mortification, by hiding her head under a leaf, or other small substance, while her whole body is left exposed to attacks. And, also, all of the new States have come into the Union through the consent of the old States; and now, after giving their consent

they should enter the Union, have they now no farther control, or are they not implicated in the system of slavery, if they will now tolerate it? can they guarantee to the different States they will protect them from an internal insurrection of slaves, and yet put it out of their power to say aught against this system? If it is so, it is in effect guaranteeing, as has been said, the system of slavery. But this they have not done.

Mr. Madison, in answer to Mr. Henry, in his supposition congress had unlimited control, said,—

The

"There is a powerful check in that paper. State governments are to govern the militia, when not called forth for general or national purposes, and congress is to govern such part only as may be in the actual service of the Union. Nothing can be more certain and positive than this. It expressly empowers congress to govern them when in the actual service of the United States. It is then clear that States govern them when they are not.

"With respect to suppressing insurrections, I say that these clauses, when they are mentioned by the honorable gentleman, are compatible with a concurrence of the power. By the first, congress is to call them forth to suppress insurrections and repel invasions, by foreign powers. A concurrence in the former case is necessary, because a whole State may be in an insurrection against the Union. What has passed will perhaps justify this apprehension."

After speaking of the invasion of foreign states, and even of a neighboring State, and of the power