Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/416

Congress having the aforesaid report under consideration, April 19, 1784, Mr. Spaight, of N. C, moved the striking out of the above paragraph. Mr. Read, of S. C, seconded the motion. The ayes and nays, being required by Mr. Howell, were ordered, and put in this form — "Shall the words moved to be stricken out stand?"

The question was lost, and the words were struck out, although six states voted aye to only three nay; and though of the members present, fifteen voted for, to six against, Mr. Jefferson's proposition. But the articles of confederation required a vote of nine states to carry a proposition; and, failing to receive so many, this comprehensive exclusion of slavery from the federal territories was defeated. The ordinance, thus depleted, after undergoing some further amendments, was finally approved, April 23d — all the delegates, but those from South Carolina, voting in the affirmative.

In 1787, the last Continental Congress, sitting in New York simultaneously with the Convention at Philadelphia which framed our Federal Constitution, took up the subject of the government of the western territory, raising a committee thereon, of which Nathan Dane, of Massachusetts, was chairman. That committee reported (July 11th) "An Ordinance for the government of the Territory of the United States, Northwest of the Ohio" — the larger area contemplated by Mr. Jefferson's bill not having been ceded by the southern states claiming dominion over it. This bill embodied many of the provisions originally drafted and reported by Mr. Jefferson, but with some modifications, and concludes with six unalterable articles of perpetual compact, the last of them as follows:

"There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in punishment of crimes, whereof the parties shall be duly convicted."

To this was added, prior to its passage, the stipulation for the delivery of fugitives from labor or service, soon after embodied in the Federal Constitution; and in this shape, the entire ordinance was adopted (July 13th) by a unanimous vote, Georgia and the Carolinas concurring.

 

CHAPTER XXIII.

Formation of the Constitution — Slavery Compromises.

Convention assembles at Philadelphia, 1787. — Proceedings in reference to the slave basis of representation, the second compromise of the Constitution. — Debate. — Remarks of Patterson, Wilson, King, Gouverneur Morris, and Sherman. — Debate on the Importation of slaves, by Rutledge, Ellsworth, Sherman, C. Pinckney. — Denunciation of slavery by Mason of Virginia. — The third Compromise, the continuance of the African slave-trade for twenty years, and the unrestricted power of Congress to enact Navigation laws.

The convention of delegates from the several states to revise the Articles of Confederation, was legally assembled at Philadelphia, in 1787, and appoint-