sistency is, slavery, like alcohol, destroys the moral sensibilities of our natures; our moral feelings are blunted; their influence destroys our moral faculties, and they leave a man in comparative moral darkness. We cannot account for this on any other principle.

Mr. Madison, speaking of this 9th section, said,—

"I should conceive this clause to be impolitic if it could be excluded without greater evils. The Southern States would not have entered into the Union of America without the temporary permission of that trade. And if they were excluded from the Union the consequences might be dreadful to them and us. We are not in a worse situation than before. That traffic is prohibited by our laws, and we may continue the prohibition. The Union, in general, is not in a worse situation. Under the articles of Confederation it might be continued forever, but by this clause an end may be put to it after twenty years. There is, therefore, an amelioration of our circumstances. A tax may be laid in the mean time, but it is limited; otherwise congress might lay such a tax as would amount to a prohibition. From the mode of representation and taxation, congress cannot lay such a tax on slaves as would amount to manumission. Another clause secures us that property which we now possess. At present, if any slave elopes to those States where slaves are free, he becomes emancipated by their laws; for the laws of the States are uncharitable to one another in this respect; but in this Constitution 'No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.' This clause was expressly in

This

serted to enable owners of slaves to reclaim them. is a better security than any that now exists. No power is given to the general government to interfere with respect to the property in slaves now held by the States. The taxation of this State being equal only to its representation, such a tax cannot be laid as he supposes. They cannot prevent the importation of slaves for twenty years; but after that period they can. The gentlemen from Georgia and South Carolina argued in this manner: 'We have now liberty to import this species of property; and much of the property now possessed has been purchased, or otherwise acquired, in contemplation of improving it by the assistance of imported slaves.

would be the consequence of hindering us from it? The slaves of Virginia would rise in value, and we be obliged

to go to your market.' I need not expatiate on this subject. Great as is the evil, a dismemberment of the Union would be worse; if these States should disunite from other States for not indulging them in the temporary continuance of this traffic, they might solicit and obtain aid from foreign powers.'

It is a great pity the laws have not always been considered uncharitable, and that no man-catcher had ever been permitted by the justices of our inferior courts to secure his victim and carry him back to a state of bondage.

Mr. Madison seems here to say the convention did actually make a provision that, in the manner in which the representation and taxation went. together, it would be impossible for congress to liberate the slaves by way of taxing them; and he also cites the section which, it is said, concerns

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

runaway slaves; and he thought this would secure the property they then possessed in slaves. He appears perfectly willing no more of the colored men should be stolen and brought to our shores; but he does not seem to reflect that all slaves are stolen property, and consequently the rightful owners may take them whenever they think proper, and they can be secured within their own power. At least, this is the doctrine universally held with regard to all other stolen property; and we have yet to learn any good reason why this doctrine should not hold good here; and, if so, who, it has well been asked, has a better claim over the bones and sinews of a man than he who carries them about? If it is wicked to steal a man, it is as wicked to retain a stolen man in our possession against his consent.

In the observations made by Mr. M. we have a striking example of the inconsistency of man; and, so far as it was meant to keep the slave in continual bondage, we will not in the least extenuate the matter. But, in continuing his speech, and falling upon the consequences that would result, if the foreign slave-trade should be stopped, and they continued to hold them in Virginia, and the domestic trade should spring up, he began to sicken at the contemplation that Virginia, the Old Dominion, she who had produced her Washington, her Jefferson, and such a galaxy of the lovers of liberty, at least for themselves, should become a slavemarket for the farther South, and her renowned in war and in council should degenerate into pro

ducers of slaves for Carolina and Georgia! Would it not be enough to sicken any rational being, and prevent him from expatiating upon a subject so full of disgrace? Before he died, must he not have realized his forebodings, and must it not have weighed down his spirits? To prevent such a catastrophe, and not to have it understood Virginia was then ready to become a slave-breeding State though it has been said that, when the slavetrade was finally prohibited, she was willing to become one they permitted this abominable traffic, from fear, as Mr. M. intimates, that the South would obtain her slaves from Virginia, rather than from Africa; and from the fear that greater danger would result to the country, if a union of the States was not effected. We can only trust they were sincere in their expressions: nothing else could secure them from the most gross hypocrisy. They did not know which way to turn to go forward in a generous emancipation, they were not prepared; and they knew not how to go back to a general dissolution of the States: they dared not do either. To use the language, as we have understood, of Jefferson, "they had the wolf by the ears to hold on was dangerous, and to let go more so." They were not then, and mankind are not now, ready to admit the doctrine that it is far more safe to do right than continue in the path of wrong; that it is better for all classes that individual rights should be every where respected; and that he who sows and he who reaps should be alike rewarded; and that, in fact, in

proportion as the producing classes are intelligent and well provided, so is the whole community advanced in a state of civilization, manufactures, and the arts. It is the intelligent workman who can perceive when science can be applied, and who makes improvements in machinery, and not the man of letters: a man of letters may discover principles, but it is the workman who applies these principles to his arts.1

"Mr. Tyler warmly enlarged on the impolicy, iniquity, and disgracefulness of this wicked traffic. He thought the reasons urged by gentlemen in defence of it were inconclusive and ill-founded. It was one cause of complaint against British tyranny that this trade was permitted. The Revolution put a period to it; but now it was to be revived. He thought nothing could justify it. This temporary restriction on congress militated, in his opinion, against the arguments of gentlemen on the other side, that what was not given up was retained by the States; for, if this restriction had not been inserted, congress could have prohibited the African slave-trade. The power of prohibiting it was not expressly delegated to them; and yet they would have had it by implication, if this restraint had not been provided. This seemed to him to demonstrate most clearly the necessity of restrain

1 We know of one instance where an intelligent mechanic, by the name of Wright, has saved to our manufacturing establishments perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars, in applying machinery to the making the simple article of bobbin-heads; and of another, by the name of Pickering, who, by making a snow-plough, has saved the labor of hundreds of men, in clearing the tracks of our railways; to say nothing of those who have made the improvements and discoveries in the application of steam and machinery, that are in constant use throughout this country and in Europe.