perous, more happy every day. Such men were in the very worst condition to be aroused to rebellion. The most the arts of politicians could persuade their representatives to do was to ask for an amendment to the Constitution of the United States.* The State to propose this amendment was Massachusetts. There the people were firmly convinced that the Commonwealth was in great danger; that a crisis was at hand; that her sovereignty, her independence were fast being taken away; that she was already a cipher in the national councils; that the South, united in a common policy and ruled by the influence of Virginia, governed the country, and that this power of the South over the North was due to the system of slave representation. The whole number of slaves in the South at this moment, they would argue, is eight hundred and forty-eight thousand. Three fifths of these are represented, and three fifths divided by the ratio of representation † gives fifteen. There are in the House of Representatives, therefore, fifteen negro representatives. This number is greater by one than the whole number to which New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island are entitled; is less by two than the number of representatives of Massachusetts; has repeatedly been found sufficient to secure legislation hurtful to New England and, at the election of 1801, determined the choice of a President. The South, having secured these advantages in the House, is now about to secure like control over the SenAn enormous territory had been purchased in the West to be cut up into new slave States, with two votes each in the Senate. What then will become of the interests of New England? What will become of her commerce, of her manufactures, of her fisheries, of that liberty and independence for which she began the revolution of 1776? They will be wholly at the mercy of men whose seats in the House and in the Senate are due to importations from the coast of Guinea. To prevent this evil may perhaps be impossible; but to retard its approach is easy. Let the Constitution be amended. * A collection of the sentiments of public men on secession between 1790 and 1804 may be found in the Life of William Plumer. By William Plumer, pp. 277-284. † 1: 33,000. 1804. THE ELY AMENDMENT. 45 Let that provision which gives to twenty thousand owners of fifty thousand slaves the same voice in an election as fifty thousand free men be stricken out. Let there be one rule for North and South, and let that rule be "representation according to free population." The demand was heard, and in June a motion calling for an amendment to the Constitution of the United States was laid before the General Court. The preamble of the motion set forth that the representation of slaves was a concession of the East to the South; that it was unjust and hurtful at the very start; that the injury had since been increased by the multiplication of slaves and by the purchase of Louisiana; that the union of the States could not exist on principles of inequality; and that, in order to preserve the Union, the Constitution ought to be so amended that representation and direct taxes should be apportioned among the States according to free population. * The resistance of the Republicans to its passage was little more than form. They declared it to be unnecessary; assured the Federalists that thirteen States would never approve; pronounced it the work of alarmists, of men determined to break up the Union; reminded the Legislature that breaking up the Union meant dividing the national debt; that when the debt was divided each section would become responsible for so much as was owned by its citizens; that south of Pennsylvania there were not fourteen hundred holders of Government stock; that east of Pennsylvania there were eight thousand, and these would have to be paid by taxes and excises laid on the farmers, the merchants, and the commercial men of New England. Nevertheless, the Ely amendment, as it was called, passed, and in December was laid before the Senate of the United States by Timothy Pickering, and speedily forgotten. As is customary in such cases, copies of the Massachusetts resolutions were sent to each of the States. Two postponed consideration. From each of the others came an answer, and the answer in each case was No. Virginia declared that the article to be amended was one of the compromises in the Consti * Democrat, June 16, 1804. A Defence of the Legislature of Massachusetts, or the Rights of New England Vindicated. Boston, 1804. Democrat, August 18, 1804. Connecticut and Delaware. # tution; was therefore fundamental and ought to be among the last to be changed, lest change should destroy reliance on that good faith which is the cement of the Union and the guarantee of the political fabric on which the Union rests.* To alter the system of apportioning representation and direct taxes would, Maryland declared, loosen the ties by which the States are happily confederated, scatter seeds of disunion, and produce anarchy a state of things from which every reflecting mind must turn with terror and abhorrence.† South Carolina pronounced it incompatible with the rights and interests of the State, and an innovation on the system of reciprocal conciliation established by the Constitution.‡ Ohio resolved that the amendment was inexpedient, would excite State jealousies, destroy that confidence and good understanding which then prevailed, and endanger the Union. The answer of Pennsyl vania was long and exhaustive. The statements of Massachusetts, that the rule for the apportionment of representation was unjust at the start; that it had been made more so by the increase of slaves and the purchase of Louisiana; and that the amendment was necessary to preserve the harmony and union. of the States, were examined one by one, and the opinion expressed that to alter the Constitution as Massachusetts wished would hasten rather than hinder the evils it was intended to prevent. Kentucky laid down four propositions which she held ought not to be disputed: In a confederation of States the principles by which they shall be governed are a subject of agreement between the contracting parties; that the Constitution of the United States was such an agreement; that some of the provisions of the Constitution, being adapted to the peculiar situation of some of the States, were conditions without which those States would not have entered the Union; that the mode of representation was such a condition to which the slave-holding States agreed in full confidence that it was just and not oppressive. She believed, therefore, that a change might be followed by the disruption of the Union. From Vermont, from Rhode Island, from New Hampshire * Aurora, January 3, 1805. # Aurora, February 20, 1805. 1804. ELY AMENDMENT REJECTED. 47 and New York, New Jersey and North Carolina, from Georgia and Tennessee, came back answers of a similar kind. Never before nor since did an amendment offered by any State receive a more crushing condemnation. As reply after reply was issued, the joy of the Republicans rose high. The end and aim, they said, was plain from the start. It never was designed to be attached to the Constitution. It was sent forth to gather public opinion on the fitness of dividing the Union, and it was with unfeigned joy that they saw it receive the approbation of no second State. When the Republicans told their Federal associates in the Massachusetts General Court that the Ely amendment was the work of men ready to break up the Union, they spoke more truly than they knew. For months past the leaders of the New England Federalists had been seriously planning and discussing secession. In this, such of them as had seats in Congress were especially busy. Indeed, the very fact that they were in Congress made them rebellious. Reduced to a minority by the election of Jefferson, they had been compelled to sit month after month as the idle beholders of the destruction of what they were pleased to call the Federal edifice. They had seen the navy ruined, the army reduced to a handful, the whole system of Federal taxation swept away, the judiciary act repealed, and judges, duly appointed and duly commissioned by Adams, denied the right of serving. They had seen Louisiana purchased, and the twelfth amendment to the Constitution sent out to the States. Against all this their protests, their speeches, their votes availed nothing. Galled past all bearing by unending defeat, they had now reached a pass when they could see nothing good in any act of the Republican majority. The proposed amendment to the Constitution was for the sole purpose of making Mr. Jefferson President a second time. Louisiana had been bought to keep the Virginians in power, and enable them to ruin New England. To keep the Virginians in power the Senate and House must be Republican. To insure the Senate being always Republican, there must be more slave States. An immense wilderness had therefore been purchased, and was already being cut up into embryo slave States. To keep the House Republican, there must be more slave representatives. To get these there must be more slaves, and to get more slaves South Carolina had repealed her law, had opened the port of Charleston to the slave trade, and in a few months a stream of wretched blacks, dragged from the coast of Guinea and the marts of the Spanish Indies, would be hurrying over the mountains into the new domain. Federalists out of Congress might be content to grumble and to write; those in Congress, driven to despair by the hopeless struggle with the majority, were disposed to act, and to act vigorously. Chief among them was Timothy Pickering, and with him in this way of thinking were Roger Griswold, Uriah Tracy, William Plumer, and, in time, Aaron Burr. The wildness of the plan arranged by these men is of itself conclusive proof of the depth of their despair and the intemperance of their political zeal. Nothing seemed to them easier than to set up their Confederacy. Men favorable to secession had but to get together in some New England State and choose a General Court and Governor pledged to support disunion. The General Court must then repeal the law authorizing the election of members of Congress, set up customhouses and post-offices, and, when the time came, refuse to elect United States Senators. Could Massachusetts be persuaded to lead the way, Connecticut and New Hampshire would follow, and Rhode Island come in of necessity. To secure New York would be more difficult, but even of her they did not lose hope. Indeed, so great was their infatuation that they fully expected to be joined by New Jersey and by Pennsylvania east of the Susquehanna, and by the British provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. The plan formed, their next step was to make it known to their constituents, and letters were soon despatched to the Federal leaders in Connecticut and Massachusetts. Not one of them sent back an encouraging reply. Each admitted that a crisis was Each admitted that a separation was greatly to be desired; but each insisted that such a step at such a time could only end in failure. The people were not ready for it. They must wait till something happened; till a war had been provoked by Great Britain or France; till the proposed amend near. |