cause he was an apprentice by contract, not because he was an indented servant by contract, but because by the law of the State that contract was one from which he could not escape, because by the law of the State he was bound, having entered into the contract, to render the service for which the contract stipulated. But if the law of the State gave to one man a right to the service of another, and that law is legal (which is not involved in this question), if slavery as it exists in the States is legal, then he who owes service in a slave State to a citizen of the slave State owes service to such citizen 'under the laws thereof.""

Mr. Sumner: "A slave cannot owe service, the Senator will bear in mind.”

Mr. Johnson: "I cannot bear that in mind. I cannot get it into the mind."

Mr. Sumner: "It is very essential in discussing this question."

Mr. Johnson: "I know it is absolutely essential to come to your conclusion; but it is a conclusion I think that no other gentleman can well come to, because no other gentleman can well get that into his mind. But I was about to say that the clause referred to by the member from Kentucky is pregnant with meaning on the question:

Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years.

"Now, one of your classes is provided for. Your apprentices and your indented servants are 'bound' only 'for a term of years.' They are to be added. Who are to be excluded? 'Indians not taxed' are to be excluded. Who else is to be added? 'Three-fifths of all other persons.' What is the meaning of these words?

"Now, who are the 'persons,' three-fifths of whom are to be added for the purpose of determining the question of representation and the other question of taxation? If you take the apprentices out, and the indented servants out, and the Indians out, are there any other persons than slaves? The honorable member is not to be told, Mr. President, that one of the political objections to slavery which the North has urged, and which was quite a sound one if they were about to make a constitution for themselves, was that three-fifths of the slaves were added for the purpose of increasing the representation of the South, when the North was denied the right to increase its own representation by having added in any way for that purpose any portion of its property, whatever that might be. The objection was a political one. It was that this clause gave to the South greater weight in the councils of the country than their white free population entitled them to; and the objection was, not that apprentices were added, for they were white, not that indented servants were added, for they were

white, but that what the South considered as property, slaves, were added. In all the debates upon that subject, that has been a fruitful topic of complaint, and the North no doubt in a few years after the Constitution was adopted, and particularly after the southern States began to multiply and this slave population began to multiply, would have changed the Constitution if they could in that particular. When the Constitution was adopted, it was a matter comparatively unimportant; but when you added southern State after southern State, and brought in slaves by the thousand, the disproportion between the white population and the slave population became so great that in point of fact you made an aristocracy of the South, and they ruled the North, not by their own numbers, but because they were masters of the slaves.

"But what was the object of the ninth section of the first article? That is a provision which was taken out of the amendatory clause, and that ninth section says:

The migration or importation of such persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year 1808.

"What is the meaning of 'persons' there? Were there any white apprentice boys in Africa? Were there any laws of apprenticeship in Africa? Did any there by contract owe service to any master in Africa? Did any there by contract agree to owe service to any man who would come there and take them away? We know it was not so. That ruthless and barbarous traffic, the disgrace of civilization, the dishonor of England more than of ourselves, was a trade of violence. They were snatched from their country by force or by fraud, subjected to all the dangers of the passage hence, dying by thousands and hundreds of thousands, after suffering excruciating tortures that make the blood run cold even when we read of them at this distant day; they were brought here and made slaves, and we said that they might continue to be brought for a time, as included under the term 'persons;' and the honorable member, therefore, unless he is able to read that word 'persons' in the ninth section as comprehending only apprentices, cannot read the same word to be found in the fugitive slave clause as meaning only apprentices.

"The Senate is not to be told, Mr. President, that I share as earnestly as the honorable member from Massachusetts can in a desire to see the institution terminated. The difference between us is, as I think, that he takes a different view of constitutional obligation. It is, as I think, that the Constitution recognizes the institution in plain terms, that it was the purpose of our fathers to make such a recognition, that they acted in pursuance of that purpose during the whole period of their own lives upon earth, that every act of legislation passed by them during the time that they were guiding the councils of the country recognized the institu

tion and deemed it the duty of every department of the government, as long as the institution should remain, to protect it."

Mr. Sumner: "I shall not be betrayed into any extended debate; but shall content myself with replying directly to what has been said on the other side.

"There is first the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Sherman), who intervened to arrest the generous purpose of the Senate, as it was about to vote, by a proposition to keep alive the old act of 1793. Strange that now, while we are in deadly conflict with slavery, it should be proposed to keep alive an ancient support of slavery. But the Senator gravely insists, and the Senator from Maryland (Mr. Johnson) insists with him. But the Senator from Ohio does not seem to be aware of the character of the statute which he proposes to keep alive. Let me remind him that by this statute which he cherishes so warmly a fellow-man may be hurried before a magistrate and doomed to slavery without a trial by jury. Can this be constitutional? Will the Senator sanction such an en

actment?

"But the Senator from Maryland, not content with affirming the constitutionality of the act of 1793, has plunged into a general discussion on the fugitive clause of the Constitution. He insists laboriously that it was intended to cover fugitive slaves. When I reminded him that its authors might have intended it to cover fugitive slaves, without succeeding in their attempts, he then insists that it does cover fugitive slaves. Well, sir, there I meet him pointblank. I insist that, whatever may have been the original intention of the framers of that clause, they did not succeed in making it cover fugitive slaves. It is a question of construction, and the language employed is not applicable to fugitive slaves. It does not describe them, and cannot by any just tribunal be extended to embrace them. If the prejudices of the Senator were not already enlisted, I should not doubt his judgment on this point, which in the light of jurisprudence is so clear.

"There is a rule of interpretation which the Senator will not call in question. Where any language is open to two constructions, one favorable and the other odious, that which is odious must be rejected. I do not stop to give authorities. The rule is unquestionable and the authorities are ample. But do not forget the conclusion: that which is odious must be rejected. Now, the Senator has already admitted that the language of the clause is applicable to apprentices. Very well. That is enough. In its application to apprentices, redemptioners, and the like, it is exhausted, so that it cannot be made to cover a slave without offending against the rule which requires us to adopt the construction which is the least odious. And, sir, if we go further and scan nicely the language of the clause, we shall find that the words employed are all applicable to a relation of contract or debt, and not to a relation

founded on force. The clause is applicable to a 'person,' and not to a thing, and this 'person' is to be surrendered on the claim of the person to whom his service or labor may be due. But clearly no labor or service can be due from a slave to a master. The whole pretension is an absurdity. And, if you give to this word its legitimate application, you must restrain it to a case of contract or debt. In this glance I omit the argument founded on history, and the well-known opinions of leading minds in the Convention, and confine myself to the text of the Constitution.

"But the Senator dwelt especially on the words 'held to service or labor in one State under the laws thereof,' and triumphantly insisted that slaves were included under this language. Here again he is mistaken. Apprentices and redemptioners were held under 'laws;' but I need not remind the Senator of the admission repeatedly made on this floor by Mr. Mason, that there were no 'laws' for slavery in any slave State; at least, that none could be produced. Besides, as a jurist, the Senator cannot have forgotten the ancient truth that injustice cannot be 'law,' but is always to be regarded as an abuse' or a 'violence,' even though expressed in the form of 'law.' In presence of this principle, which has the sanction of as great a lawyer as St. Augustine, and in the face of the positive assertion of Mr. Mason, that no 'law' for slavery could be found in the slave States, what becomes of the argument of the Senator? No, sir. The case is clear. No ingenuity of honest effort can make the words that the Senator cites or any others in that clause sanction slavery and the hunting of slaves. In order to proceed with his argument the Senator must begin by setting aside those commanding rules of interpretation which are binding on him as on myself. If, where words are susceptible of two significations, one favorable and the other odious, the former only can be taken, then must the Senator restrain this clause to that signification which is not odious. And again, if every word is always to be construed so as most to favor liberty, then must the Senator follow implicitly this rule. But these two rules make it impossible to torture this clause into any odious or tyrannical signification. They keep it clean and pure from slavery.

แ

'Sir, I feel humbled by the necessity of this discussion; that at this late day I should be called to vindicate the Constitution of my country against glosses and interpretations in the interest of slavery. Pardon me if for a moment, leaving the two Senators who seek to foist slavery into the Constitution, I turn to the question itself, not so much for argument as for statement. If I seem to repeat, it is because there are certain points which I desire to impress upon the Senate. To my mind nothing is clearer than that, according to unquestionable rules of interpretation, the clause of the Constitution, whatever may have been the

intent of its authors, cannot be considered applicable to slaves. Such is slavery that, from the nature of the case, it cannot be sanctioned or legalized except by 'positive' words. It cannot stand on inference. This rule, which no reason can shake, drove Lord Mansfield to his great judgment in Somersett's case. African slavery had for two generations prevailed in England. It had been pronounced to be legal by eminent lawyers and judges. Some of the brightest names in Westminister Hall had given to it the sanction of professional opinion and of judicial decision. At last a person at that time unknown, Granville Sharp, struck by the injustice of slavery, devoted himself to consider the grounds on which its legality was recognized. He studied the laws of England, and all the evidences of its constitution. In the course of these studies, he was gratified to find that there was no positive establishment of African slavery in England, and, indeed, that the words 'slave' and 'slavery' were nowhere to be found in the British constitution. He next applied himself to the accumulation of well-known rules of interpretation, requiring, in any case of doubt or question, that the interpretation should be on the side of liberty, and especially that any man was 'impious' and 'cruel who did not favor liberty. Impiety and cruelty are not light burdens for an honest conscience. The conclusion was irresistible that slavery could not exist in England.

"But the unanswerable argument of Granville Sharp was rejected at first by the bar, who regarded it as an attempted innovation. The direct precedents, and the weight of authority, were the other way, and this with most lawyers is enough. Harvey said that no person above 'forty' accepted his discovery of the circulation of the blood. And Granville Sharp found himself in the same predicament. But this good man was not disheartened. He knew well that there was no statute of limitations against principles; and, better still, that principles must finally prevail over precedents. Principles are immortal, and bloom with perpetual youth. Precedents are mortal, and die from age, decrepitude, and decay. Against principles, precedents may for a while prevail; but the time must surely come when that which is mortal must yield to that which is immortal. In this conviction he persevered, until at last lawyers were convinced, and then the court.

"The judgment of Lord Mansfield on this occasion, constitutes a landmark of law which will be remembered proudly when all his contributions to commercial law and general jurisprudence are forgotten. It was a contribution to the British constitution and to human rights. Like every principle of natural law, it approves itself at once to the reason and conscience. And this authority I now invoke in the interpretation of the fugitive clause.

"At this moment of severe trial, I wish my country to put itself right with that Supreme

Power which holds in its hands the destinies of nations. It is as true in the life of nations as in the life of individuals, that if you would have equity, you must do equity; but the great equity which we must do is to be found in justice to an oppressed race. It is vain that you complain of disaster to your arms, of colored soldiers and their brave officers cruelly treated at Fort Wagner, of colored soldiers and their brave officers massacred at Fort Pillow, if you yourselves continue to set the example of injustice. The story of the Israelites will be revived, and plague after plague will be sent, sounding forever the old commandment, 'Let my people go.' If the plagues that have been sent already are not enough, another and yet another will visit us. There is one assurance of obedience which you can give. It is to expunge from your statute-book all support of slavery. Be in earnest here, and you will be practical. Then, having done equity, you may fearlessly ask for equity.

The question being taken by yeas and nays, resulted-yeas 24, nays 17; as follows:

YEAS-Messrs. Buckalew, Carlile, Collamer, Cows an, Davis, Dixon, Doolittle, Foster, Harris, Henderson, Hendricks, Howe, Johnson, Lane of Indiana, Sherman, Ten Eyck, Trumbull, Van Winkle, and McDougall, Nesmith, Powell, Riddle, Saulsbury, Willey-24.

NAYS-Messrs. Anthony, Brown, Clark, Conness, Fessenden, Grimes, Hale, Howard, Lane of Kansas, Morgan, Morrill, Pomeroy, Ramsey, Sprague, Sumner, Wilkinson, and Wilson-17.

So the amendment was agreed to.

Mr. Conness moved to lay the bill on the table, which was disagreed to-yeas 9, nays 31. No further action was taken upon it in the Senate.

In the House, on June 13th, a House bill was considered to repeal the fugitive slave law. The bill repealed sections three and four of the act of Feb. 12th, 1793, and an act supplementary passed Sept. 1850.

Mr. King, of Missouri, said: "The framers of our Constitution spoke for themselves and their children, and the children of those and their posterity, whose delegates they were. Those who vote to repeal this law, certainly will not attempt to place its passage on any such utopian theories as those to which I have been referring; nor will they, I trust, take the other ground, assumed by those visionary theorists of the same political party to which I have already referred, who take as their theory the exact reverse, and declare that ours is a proslavery Constitution, and that the Union, of which it is the only bond, by reason thereof, is a lie. 'The American Union is an imposture, a covenant with death, and an agreement with hell.' It must be overthrown.Up with the flag of disunion.'

"I will not do gentlemen the injustice to charge that they take either of the grounds to which I have been referring. If, however, they do, it will take a little more than the ability of plain 'Mr. Granville Sharp,' who by

his common sense and powerful arguments drove Lord Chief Justice Mansfield from his opinions of constitutional law. They must encounter first the opinions of the framers of our Constitution, and their sentiments uttered by such men as Alexander Hamilton, Fisher Ames, James Madison, Luther Martin, Patrick Henry, and other distinguished statesmen. Yea, more, they must encounter the sentiments delivered by Washington to Congress, by the unanimous order of the Convention, when he submitted the Constitution to Congress. In his letter to the president of Congress, among other reasons for its adoption, he says:

It is obviously impracticable, in the Federal Government of these States, to secure all rights of independent sovereignty to each, and yet provide for the interest and safety of all. Individuals entering into society must give up a share of liberty to preserve the rest. The magnitude of the sacrifice must depend as well on situation and circumstance, as on the object to be obtained. It is at all times difficult to draw with precision the line between those rights which must be surrendered and those which may be reserved; and on the present occasion this difficulty was increased by a difference among the several ⚫ States as to their situation, extent, habits, and par

ticular interests.

In all our deliberations on this subject we kept steadily in our view that which appears to us the greatest interest of every true American-the consolidation of our Union-in which is involved our prosperity, felicity, safety, perhaps our national existence. This important consideration, seriously and deeply impressed on our minds, led each State in the Convention to be less rigid on points of inferior magnitude than might have been otherwise expected, and thus the Constitution which we now present is the result of a spirit of amity and of that mutual deference and concession which the peculiarity of our political situation rendered indispensable.

"These are the sentiments uttered by Washington on behalf of the Convention which adopted our Constitution. How worthy now, in this dark day of our troubles, in the midst of a revolution brought on us by a disregard of these sentiments, that we should emulate the noble example here set us. Would that these patriot sages were now here, in this their country's day of trial, with their lessons of wisdom, and to commend them to national approval.

When the Constitution was referred by Congress to the various States for its adoption, we find the same enlarged views taken, and often by the same men who had been in the Convention, urging reasons why it should be adopted. In the northern States the effort was to satisfy the people of the necessity there was for securing to the South their rights in slave property, and that by the compromise the North received more than an equivalent in the advantages secured to their commerce and navigation. The solemn compact between the slaveholding and non-slaveholding States was adopted by the unanimous votes of the States then present in the Convention. The dissent of a single State might have marred the whole scheme of compromises so elaborately prepared as a basis of the new Constitution, and remit

ted the States of the Confederacy to a condition little short of anarchy.

"That the Constitution of 1787 was in truth founded on a deliberately-formed scheme of compromises and equivalents is a historical fact denied by none in terms, but virtually and practically by many who believe themselves to be statesmen, but who are nevertheless politicians merely. The importance of this historical fact justifies, if it does not demand, an exhibition of the evidence, in part at least, by which it is sustained.

"Here are the declarations of Alexander Hamilton to the New York convention, assembled at Poughkeepsie, in June, 1788, to pass on the new Constitution submitted to the States by the General Convention assembled at Philadelphia. I read from Eliot's Debates, page 212. He said:

In order that the committee may understand clearly the principles upon which the Convention acted, I think it necessary to explain some particular circum

stances.

Sir, the natural situation of the country seems to divide its interests into different classes. There are

navigating and non-navigating States; the northern are properly the navigating States: the southern appear to possess neither the means nor the spirit of navigation. This difference of situation naturally produces a dissimilarity of interests and views It was the interest of respecting foreign commerce. the northern States that there should be no restraints on their navigation, and that they should have full power, by a majority in Congress, to make commer cial regulations in favor of their own and in restraint of the navigation of foreigners. The southern States wished to impose a restraint on the northern, by requiring that two-thirds in Congress should be requisite to pass an act in regulation of commerce; they were apprehensive that the restraints of a navigation law would discourage foreigners, and by obliging them to employ shipping of the northern States, would probably enhance their freight. This being the case, they insisted strenuously on having this provision ingrafted on the Constitution; and the northern States were as anxious in opposing it. "Again:

Much has been said of the impropriety of representing men who have no will of their own. Whether this be reasoning or declamation I will not presume to say. It is the unfortunate situation of the southern States to have a great part of their population, as well as property, in blacks. The regulation complained of was one result of the spirit of accommodathis indulgence no Union could possibly have been tion which governed the Convention, and without formed. And, sir, considering some peculiar advantages which we derive, it is entirely just that they should be gratified. The southern States possess certain staples, tobacco, rice, indigo, &c., which must now be capital objects in treaties of commerce with foreign nations; and the advantages which they necessarily procure in these treaties will be felt throughout all the States.

It became necessary, therefore, to compromise, or the Convention would have dissolved without effect

ing any thing. Would it have been wise and prudent

in that body, in this critical situation, to have deserted their country? No. Every man who hears me, every wise man in the United States, would have condemned them. The Convention were obliged to appoint a committee for accommodation. In this committee the arrangement was formed as it now stands, and their report was accepted. It was a

delicate point, and it was necessary that all parties should be indulged.

"So much for the testimony of a distinguished northern statesman to the fact that the Constitution was a deliberately concocted system of compromises-the work of a committee for accommodation,' specially appointed for the purpose, and in which committee the rights of the slaveholders were distinctly recognized and guaranteed. And stronger still is his evidence as the representative of a great navigating and commercial State, as to the value and importance of the equivalents given by the South for all the concessions made in the Convention by the North connected with the subject of sla

very.

The eloquence and fervid zeal of Fisher Ames, who, like Hamilton, was cut off in the full bloom of his intellectual powers, urged the acceptance of the new Constitution in the Convention of Massachusetts. He said:

Shall we put every thing that we hold precious to the hazard by rejecting this Constitution. We have great advantages by it in respect of navigation, and it is the general interests of the States that we should have them. But if we reject it, what security have we that we shall obtain them a second time, against the local interests and prejudices of other States?

"I could refer to the opinions at that day of other distinguished northern statesmen as to the absolute necessity of introducing these compromises into the Constitution, and without which no Union could ever have been formed, but I deem it unnecessary.

"To the same effect, and with like arguments, southern statesmen urged in their conventions the adoption of the Constitution. In reference to the fugitive slave clause, Edmund Randolph, in the Virginian convention, said:

Were it right to mention what passed in Convention on the occasion, I might tell you that the southern States-even South Carolina herself-conceived this property to be secured by these words.

"And Judge Iredell, in the North Carolina convention, referring to this clause of the Constitution, says:

In some of the northern States they have emancipated all their slaves. If any of our slaves go there and remain a certain time they would by their present laws be entitled to their freedom, so that their masters could not get them again. This would be extremely prejudicial to the inhabitants of the southern States, and to prevent it this clause is inserted in

the Constitution.

"In the South Carolina convention for the adoption of the Constitution we have these emphatic expressions from Charles Cotesworth Pinckney:

We have obtained a right for the recovery of our slaves in whatever part of America they may take refuge, which is a right we had not before.

"Mr. Speaker, I may add truly that no such right existed under our Articles of Confederation, yet it is equally true that this Congress of the Confederation would not pass the celebrated Ordinance of 1787, in reference to the Northwestern Territory, until a clause for delivering up fugitive slaves was inserted.

"Mr. Speaker, I could add, if necessary, contemporaneous expressions going to sustain the same view from the Legislatures and conventions of every State to which the Constitution was submitted for its adoption. I now refer briefly to the view taken by the courts and the learned commentators upon the Constitution since its adoption.

"The passage of the act in reference to fugitive slaves in 1793 was not called for by any complaints from the South, but it is historically known that, upon a call for remedial legislation upon the subject of the surrender of fugitives from justice, this question also naturally pressed itself upon Congress, many of its members having been in the Convention when the Constitution was adopted.

"The owner of a slave, in the absence of any law, has the right under the Constitution, upon the principles of recaption at the common law, to seize and recapture his slave whenever he can do it without a breach of the peace. But cases may often arise when he cannot lay his hands on him by reason of obstacles thrown in the way, and hence the necessity of some legislation. This opinion and position is fully sustained by Mr. Justice Story in the opinion delivered in the case of Prigg vs. The State of Pennsylvania. In this decision, announced by a northern judge, he says:

The full recognition of this right and title was indispensable to the security of this species of property in all the slaveholding States, and was so vital to the tions that it constituted a fundamental article, with preservation of their domestic interests and instituout the adoption of which the Union could not have been formed.

"I will read no more of that decision. It is lengthy, and fully discusses the constitutional question as to the rights of the slave States upon this subject. I am aware that, since the death of Judge Story, some fanatic has procured a note to be appended to the decision, stating that Judge Story had said, out of court, that the constitutionality of the act was not considered in making the decision. The facts of this note are so irreconcilable with the de-. cision that I will not insult the intelligence of the House by further comment upon it. It has emanated from the brain of some abolitionist who never had more than one idea in his head at a time, and that not a very clear one.

"To the same effect is the opinion of the supreme court of Pennsylvania, by Chief Justice Tilghman, in the case of Wright vs. Deacon, 5 S. and R., 63. He says:

Whatever may be our opinion on the subject of slavery, it is well known that our southern brethren would not have consented to have become parties to a Constitution under which the United States have

enjoyed so much prosperity, unless their property in slaves had been secured.

"And I may add that all our distinguished writers and commentators upon this subject are to the same effect."

Mr. Hubbard, of Connecticut, followed, saying: "I deny that any constitutional question