Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/429

CHAPTER XXIV.

Political History of Slavery in the United States from 1189 to 1800.

First session of First Congress, 1789. — Tariff bill — duty imposed on imported slaves. — The Debate — views of Roger Sherman, Fisher Ames, Madison, &c. — Review of the state of slavery in the States in 1790. — Second session. — Petitions from the Quakers of Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New York. — Petition of Pennsylvania Society, signed by Franklin. — Exciting debate — power of Congress over slavery. — Census of 1790. — slave population. — Vermont the first State to abolish and prohibit slavery. — Constitution of Kentucky — provisions in respect to slavery. — Session of 1791. — Memorials for suppression of slave-trade, from Virginia, Maryland, New York, &c., — The Right of Petition discussed. — First fugitive slave law, 1793. — First law to suppress African Slave Trade, 1794. — The Quakers again, 1797 — their emancipated slaves reduced again to slavery, under expost facto law of North Carolina. — Mississippi territory — slavery clause debated. — Foreign slaves prohibited. — Constitution of Georgia — importation of slaves prohibited, 1798 — provisions against cruelty to slaves. — New York provides for gradual extinguishment of slavery, 1799. — Failure of similar attempt in Kentucky. — Colored citizens of Pennsylvania petition Congress against Fugitive Slave law and slave-trade — their petition referred to a committee; bill reported and passed, 1800.

The first session of the new Congress was held in the city of New York in 1789. A quorum was obtained for business on the 6th of April. A tariff bill having been reported, and being under discussion in the house on the question of its second reading, Parker, of Virginia, moved to insert a clause imposing a duty of ten dollars on every slave imported. "He was sorry the constitution prevented Congress from prohibiting the importation altogether. It was contrary to revolution principles, and ought not to be permitted." The only state which seemed to have a direct pecuniary interest in this question was Georgia. In all the other states at present represented on the floor, the importation of slaves, whether from Africa or elsewhere, was prohibited. Even South Carolina, just before the meeting of the federal convention, had passed an act, as she had been accustomed to do occasionally in colonial times, when the prices of produce were too low to be remunerative, prohibiting, for one year, the importation of slaves — a prohibition since renewed for three years. But, notwithstanding this temporary prohibition, the same jealousy as to her right of importation, so strongly manifested in the federal convention, was now exhibited on the floor of the house. Smith, the representative from the Charleston district, "hoped that such an important and serious proposition would not be hastily adopted. It was rather a late moment for the first introduction of a subject so big with serious consequences. No one topic had been yet introduced so important to South Carolina and the welfare of the Union." Sherman, of Connecticut, threw out some suggestions similar to those he had offered in the federal convention. He "approved the object of the motion, but did not think it a fit subject to be embraced in this bill. He could not reconcile himself to the insertion of human beings, as a subject of impost, among goods, wares, and merchandise. He hoped the motion would be withdrawn for the present, and taken up afterwards as an independent subject."

Jackson, of Georgia, "was not surprised, however others might be so, at the