Various
The Continental Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, June, 1862 / Devoted To Literature and National Policy
THE CONSTITUTION AND SLAVERY
There are two sections of the United States, the Free States and the Slave States, who hold views widely different upon the subject of Slavery and the true interpretation of the Constitution in relation to it. The Southern view, for the most part, is:
1. The Constitution recognizes slaves as strictly property, to her bought and sold as merchandise.
2. The Constitution recognizes all the territories as open to slavery as much as to freedom, except in those cases where it has been expressly interdicted by the Federal Government; and it secures the legal right to carry slaves into the territories, and any act of Congress, restricting this right to hold slaves in the territories, is unconstitutional and void.
3. Slavery is a natural institution, and not to be considered as local and municipal.
4. The Constitution is simply a compact or league between sovereign States, and when either party breaks, in the estimation of the other, this contract, it is no longer binding upon the whole, and the party that thinks itself wronged has a right, acting according to its own judgment, to leave the Union.
5. This contract between sovereign States has been broken to such an extent, by long and repeated aggressions upon the South by the North, that the slave States who have seceded from the Union, or who may secede, are not only right in thus doing, but are justified in taking up arms, to prevent the collection of revenue by the Federal Government.
These ideas are universally repudiated in the free States. It is not my purpose to discuss the social or moral relations of slavery, but simply to consider under what circumstances the Constitution originated, and what was the clear intent of those who adopted it as the organic or fundamental law of the country. The last assumption taken by the seceding States grows out of the first four, and therefore it becomes a question of vital interest, what did the framers of the Constitution mean? We must remember that while names remain the same, the things which they represent in time go through a radical change. Slavery is not the same that it was when the Constitution was formed, nor are the original slave States the same. If freedom at the North has made great strides, so also has slavery South. Our country now witnesses a mighty difference in free and slave institutions from what originally was seen. The stand-point of slavery and freedom has altogether changed, not from local legislation, but from natural causes, inherent in these two diverse states of society. New interests, new relations, new views of commerce, agriculture, and manufactures now characterize our country. It will not do then to infer, from the existing state of things, as originally the respective condition of the slaveholding and the free States, or what was in fact the import of that agreement, called the Constitution, which brought about the Federal Union. The framers of the Constitution did not reason so much as to what they should do for posterity as for the generation then living. As fallible men, much as they would wish to legislate wisely for the future, yet their very imperfection of knowledge precluded them from knowing fully what fifty or a hundred years hence would be the development of slavery or freedom. Their actions must have reference to present wants, and consult especially existing conditions of society. While they intended that the Constitution should be the supreme law of the land, yet they wisely put into the hands of the people the power of amending it at any such time as circumstances might make it necessary. The question then at issue between the North and the South is not what the Constitution should read, not what it ought to be, to come up to the supposed interests of the country; but what it does read. How is the Constitution truly to be interpreted? All parties should acquiesce in seeking only to find out the literal import of the Constitution as originally framed, or subsequently amended, and abide by it, irrespective altogether of present interests or relations. The reason is, in no other way can the common welfare of the country be promoted. If the necessities of the people demand a change in the Constitution, they can, in a legal way, exercise the right, always remembering that no republic, no free institutions, no democratic state of society can exist that denies the great principle of the rule of the majority. It becomes us, then, in order that we may come to a right decision respecting the duties that grow out of our Federal Union, to consider what language the Constitution makes use of, in relation to slavery, and how was this instrument interpreted by the framers. The great question is, was slavery regarded as a political and moral evil, to be restricted and circumscribed within the States existing under the Constitution, or was it looked upon as a blessing, a social relation of society, proper to be diffused over the territories? It can be clearly shown that there was no such state of feeling, respecting slavery, as to lead the originators of Constitution to look upon it as a thing in itself of natural right, useful in its operation, and worthy of enlargement and perpetuation. Rather, the universal sentiment respecting slavery, North and South, was, that as a great moral, social, and political evil, it should be condemned, and the widely prevalent impression was, that through the peaceful operation of causes that evinced the immeasurable superiority of free institutions, slavery would itself die out, and the whole country be consecrated to free labor. Never did it enter the minds of the framers of the Constitution, that slavery was a thing in itself right and desirable, or that it should be encouraged in the territories. It was looked upon as exclusively local in its character, the creature of State law, a relation of society that was to be regulated like any other municipal institution. It is not to be presumed that the authors of our government would, in the Declaration of Independence, assert the natural rights of all men to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and then contradict this cardinal principle of the revolution in the Constitution. They found slavery existing in the Southern States; they simply left it as it was before the Revolution, with the idea that in time the local action of the State legislature would do away with the system. But so far as the extension of slavery was concerned, the predominant feeling, North and South, was hostile to it. The security of the country demanded the union of the States under one common Constitution. The dangers of foreign war, the exhausted finances of the different States, the evils of a great public debt, contracted during the Revolution, made it advisable, as soon as the consent of the States could be got, to have a Constitution that should command security at home and credit and respect abroad. It was regarded as indispensable for union, that slavery should be left as it was found in the States. The thirteen States that first formed our Union under the Constitution, with the great evils that grew out of war and debt, agreed, for their own mutual protection, that slavery should be permitted to exist in those States where it was sanctioned by the local government, as an evil to be tolerated, not as a thing good in itself, to be fostered, perpetuated, and enlarged. Seeing that union could not be had without slavery, it was recognized as an institution not to be interfered with by the free States; but not acknowledged, in the sense that it was right, a blessing that, like free labor, should be the normal condition of the whole people. There was no such indifference to slavery as a civil institution, as has been asserted. The reason is two-fold: first, the States could not be indifferent to slavery, if they wished; and secondly, they could not repudiate, in the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence. Thus the word 'slave' is not found in the Constitution. In the rendition of slaves, they simply spoke of persons held to service, and as union was impossible, if the free States were open to their escape, without the right being recognized of being returned, this provision was accordingly made; and yet by the provision that no person should be deprived of liberty or life, without due process of law, and that the free citizens of one State, irrespective of color, should have the same rights, while resident in any other State, as the citizens of that State, the framers of our Constitution declared, in language most explicit, the natural rights of all men. The question is not as to the consistency of their profession and practice, or how they could fight for their own independence, and yet deny freedom, for the sake of the Union, to the slaves; but the question is simply whether, in preparing the Constitution, they intended to engraft upon it the idea of the natural right of slavery, and recognize it as a blessing, to be perpetuated and enlarged. The question is simply, whether the Constitution was designed to be pro-slavery, or whether, like the instrument of the Declaration of Independence, it was intended to be the great charter of civil and religious freedom, although compelled, for the sake of union, not to interfere with slavery where it already existed? Great stress is put upon that clause enjoining the rendition of slaves escaping from their masters; but union was impossible without this provision. The necessity of union was thought indispensable for protection, revenue, and securing the dearly-bought blessings of independence. The question with them was not, ought slavery to be recognized as a natural right, and slaves a species of property like other merchandise? but simply, shall we tolerate this evil, for the sake of Union? Thus, as the indispensable condition of union, the provision was made for the rendition of persons held to labor in the slave States. Why is the language of the Constitution so guarded as not to have even the word 'slave' in it, and yet of such a character as not to interfere with local State legislation upon slavery? Simply to steer between the Charybdis of no union and the Scylla of the repudiation of the Declaration of Independence, teaching that all men are born free and equal, and that all have natural rights, such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And yet, in the slave States, the interpretation of the Constitution is such, that the free States are accused of violating it, unless they acknowledge that it recognizes slavery as a natural right, and an institution to be perpetuated and enlarged, and put upon the same level with the blessing of freedom, in the territories. Slavery virtually must be nationalized, and the Constitution be interpreted so as to carry it all over the territories now existing, or to be acquired, or the free States have broken the Constitution, and the slave States may leave the Union whenever it suits their pleasure. It is easy to see how time has brought about such a revolution of feeling and idea respecting slavery. It can be shown that circumstances have changed altogether the relations of slavery, and while names have remained the same, the things which they represent have assumed a radical difference. It can be shown that the introduction of the cotton-gin, and the increased profits of slave labor, have given an impetus to the domestic institution that brings with it an entire revolution of opinion. When slavery was unprofitable to the slaveholders; when, in the early days of the republic, the number of slaves was comparatively small; when, all over the country, the veterans of the Revolution existed to testify to the hardships they endured for national independence, and eulogize even the help of the negro in securing it, then slavery was regarded a curse, an evil to be curtailed and in time obliterated; then the local character of slavery, as the creature of municipal law, not to be recognized where such law does not exist, was the opinion universally of the people. But now, with the growing profits of slavery, with the increase of the power of this institution, other and far different language is held. Disguise it as we may, there do exist great motives that have silently yet powerfully operated within the last thirty or forty years, to change the popular current of feeling and opinion. Not only have the slave States held the balance of political power, but the spread of slavery has been gigantic. The fairest regions of the South have been opened up to the domestic institution, and Texas annexed, with Louisiana, Arkansas and Florida, making an immense area of country, to be the nursery of slavery. The political ascendency of the slave States has ever given to the South a great advantage, in the extension of their favored institution, and the result has proved that what our ancestors looked upon as an evil that time would soon do away with, has grown into a monster system that threatens to make subservient to it the free institutions of the North.