to guarantee to each State a republican form of government, he says,

"On application of the legislature or executive, as the case may be, the militia of the other States are to be called to suppress domestic insurrections. Does this bar the States from calling forth their own militia? No! but it gives them a supplementary security to suppress insurrections and domestic violence."

Mr. George Nicholas, in answer to Mr. Henry's assertion that there was no power in the States to quell an insurrection of slaves, asked, —

"Have they it now? If they have, does the Constitution take it away? If it does, it must be in one of those clauses which have been mentioned by the worthy member. The first part gives the general government power to call them out when necessary. Does this take it away from the States? No; but it gives an additional security; for, besides the power in the State government to use their own militia, it will be the duty of the general government to aid them with the strength of the Union, when called for. No part of this Constitution can show that this power is taken away."

Let us not be deceived by the idle declamation, that, although we at the North are liable to be called upon to keep the slave in subjection, the slave so loves his master, and is so attached to his household, he would not rise in rebellion; that he had rather wear his bonds than have them loosened from his limbs. This is not so: they are constantly running away; and their taking shelter among the Indians in Florida has been

Elliot's Reports, vol. ii. p. 318.

1

the occasion of the Florida war, in which many of the men and officers of our army have been sacrificed, and forty millions of dollars have been spent by the country. On the same account the Cherokees have been removed from the land of their fathers, though nearly, if not quite, as civilized as those who desired their removal. There our soldiers have been under arms, and our money has been most profusely squandered. Again, immediately after the Southampton insurrection, and the intended insurrection in Wilmington, North Carolina, our troops were called into service, and, during the hottest portion of the year, had to take their station in the cities of the South, to protect the homes of the planter, while he was luxuriating on the sea-shore, or had come to the North to escape the sicknesses that are more especially attendant on the white man in the warm latitudes of our country; and but a short time since, our troops have been ordered to Louisiana for a similar purpose. Are these things to be continued forever, and we say nothing about them? Are the hardworking yeomanry of this latitude to be taken from their fields, their families, and their friends, to stand guard over the negro? the negro did we say no! the slave, we should have said, whether white or black; for it makes no difference, at the South, of what complexion the slave is so long as

In the Natchez Courier, printed in the State of Mississippi, we counted, in the course of three months, SEVENTY-SIX advertisements for the recovery of persons, in Adams county alone in that State, who had run away, or who had been committed to prison for so doing.

the mother was a slave, the child must be a slave also. Must, then, the yeomanry of the North be sent to the South to keep the slave in subjection, merely to support a few rich nabobs in idleness? Is our northern mother to bend with anxious solicitude over the cradle of her infant, and rejoice that a man child is born into the world, for no other purpose than that he may be reared with knapsack on his back, and firelock in hand, with bayonet fixed, ready to thrust it into a fellow-mortal, simply because his fellow does not wish to render an involuntary service to another without compensation, without pay? Is this the purpose for which mankind are sent into the world? is this the purpose for which the Constitution of these United States was formed? We hope the good sense of the North will answer no! ay, even the South will answer no!

If, then, the whole strength of the military power of this Union is at any and at all times liable to be called into requisition to put down insurrections that may happen in any one of these United States, it would seem very strange if its moral and political power may not be put in requisition to prevent such a catastrophe, by rendering that justice that can alone produce peace and harmony in the relations which different portions of the body politic sustain to one another. It is idle for the South to say, as we think, the United States as a body cannot interfere with slavery as it exists there, when she has it in her power to call upon that body to render any assistance she may ask to

keep her slaves in subjection, and worse than idle, for the North to say she has nothing to do with slavery, when she is thus liable to be called upon. No! the country, the whole country, is guilty of slavery, so long as it exists in any one of the States, when the others are thus liable to be called on to maintain it, unless, as we shall attempt to show, she has provided means for every person in his individual capacity to attain his freedom. But, if he in his individual capacity cannot, then she is bound to give it.

Mr. George Mason, in speaking of section 9th, which prevents congress from prohibiting the slave-trade for twenty years, said, —

"This is a fatal section, which has created more dangers than any other. The first clause allows the importation of slaves for twenty years. Under the royal government, this evil was looked upon as a great oppression, and many attempts were made to prevent it; but the interest of the African merchant prevented its prohibition. No sooner did the Revolution take place than it was thought of. IT WAS ONE OF THE GREAT CAUSES Of our SEPARATION FROM GREAT BRITAIN. Its exclusion has been a principal object of this State, and most of the States of the Union. The augmentation of slaves weakens the States; and such a trade is diabolical in itself, and disgraceful to mankind. Yet, by this Constitution, it is continued for twenty years. As much as I value the union of all the States, I would not admit the Southern States into the Union unless they agreed to the discontinuance of this disgraceful trade, because it would bring weakness, and not strength, to the Union. And, though this infamous traffic be continued, we have no

security for the property of that kind which we have already. There is no clause to secure it; for they may lay such a tax as will amount to manumission. And should this government be amended, still this detestable kind of commerce cannot be discontinued till after the expiration of twenty years; for the fifth article, which provides for amendments, expressly excepts this clause. I have ever looked upon this as the most disgraceful thing to America. I cannot express my detestation of it. Yet they have not secured to us the property of the slaves we have already. So they have done what they ought not to have done, and left undone that which they ought to have done.”1

We find, according to Mr. Mason's understanding of the Constitution, that slavery was far from being guaranteed to the South. A most singular inconsistency appears in this gentleman's ideas. While he laments, and would have exerted his utmost to have prevented, the slave-trade, and considered it so disgraceful he could not even express his abhorrence of it, and would even have excluded the more southern States from coming into the Union under the Constitution, if this traffic must be continued, yet he is not prepared to, and does not see how he can, give up his own slaves, or see that the keeping of them involves as much guilt as the traffic. For ourselves, we cannot perceive why, if a man may be owned with impunity, he may not be sold with impunity. May a person not do what he will with his own? The only way we can account for such incon

1 Elliot's Reports, vol. ii. p. 335.