II.

CHAPTER White wished to limit the assumption to such amounts as should appear on settlement to have been advanced 1790. beyond the quota of the states. But this latter proposition failed, as did another motion of Madison's, that payments hitherto made to state creditors should be included in the assumption as a part of the state debts. By the Articles of Confederation, the appraised value of houses and cultivated lands was to form the basis for distributing among the states the expenses of the general government, including those of the late war. As the difficulties in the way of such an appraisement had hitherto prevented its being made, Ames proposed to substi tute for it that federal ratio of population, including all the freemen and three fifths of the slaves, the basis under the new Constitution of representation and direct taxes. This motion prevailed, and the resolutions of which it formed a part became the foundation of an act providing for a final settlement of accounts between the states and the Union.

March 9.

The resolution to assume the state debts finally passed the committee by a vote of thirty-one to twenty-six; but the members elect from North Carolina who had not yet taken their seats were now daily expected, and as they were known to be strongly opposed to the assumption, a speedy reversal of this vote was confidently relied upon.

In the midst of the agitation as to the public debt, the House became involved in another discussion still more exciting, in reference to slavery and the slave trade. Slavery still existed in every state of the Union except in Massachusetts. A clause in the Constitution of that state, declaring all men to be born free and equal, inserted for the express purpose of tacitly abolishing slavery, had been judicially decided (1783) to have that effect. A few months previously to the final adoption of the Con

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stitution of Massachusetts, the State of Pennsylvania CHAPTER

had passed an act (1780) introducing a system of grad- JI. ual emancipation, prohibiting the further importation 1790. of slaves (and by a subsequent act their exportation), and assuring freedom to all persons thereafter born in that state or brought into it, except runaways from other states and the servants of travelers and others not

remaining above six months. This Pennsylvania system of gradual emancipation had been imitated in the states of Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire. The other eight states retained their old colonial slave-holding systems. But New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia had prohibited the further importation of slaves, and in Virginia and Maryland the old colonial restrictions on emancipation had been repealed, leaving thereby full play, and not without considerable results, to the conscience and generosity of the slave-holders. Jefferson and Wythe, as commissioners to revise the statute law of Virginia, had agreed upon a bill for gradual emancipation; but when the revision of the statutes came before the House of Delegates (1785), Jefferson was absent as minister at Paris. Those who shared his opinions thought that the favorable moment had not arrived, and the bill was not brought forward. Even in New York, an attempt (1785) to pass an act for the gradual abolition of slavery had failed to succeed. Yet in all the states, from North Carolina northward, warm opponents of slavery and ardent advocates for emancipation were more or less numerous, including many distinguished citizens. fluenced, perhaps, by the sarcasms thrown out in the Federal Convention, Rhode Island, shortly after the adjournment of that body, had passed a law (Oct., 1787) forbidding its citizens to engage in the slave trade.

In

The

II.

CHAPTER kidnapping of three colored persons at Boston, enticed on board a vessel and carried to the West Indies, where 1790. they were sold as slaves, produced a great excitement in Massachusetts, and occasioned (1788) a similar prohibitory act there an example speedily imitated by Connecticut and Pennsylvania. But as the Federal Consti tution gave to Congress the exclusive regulation of commerce, it had become very questionable whether these laws retained any force.

Nor was the opposition to slavery confined to legisla tive acts alone. The United Synod of New York and Philadelphia, while constituting themselves as the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America, had issued a pastoral letter (1788), in which they strongly recommended the abolition of slavery and the instruction of the negroes in letters and religion. The Methodist Episcopal Church, lately introduced and rapidly increasing, especially in Maryland and Virginia, had even gone so far as to disqualify slave-holders to be members of their communion. Coke, the first bishop, was exceedingly zealous on this subject; but the rule was afterward relaxed. In consequence of the ef forts and preaching of Woolman and others, opposition to slavery had come to be a settled tenet of the Quakers.

The same opinions had been taken up as matters of humanity and policy as well as of religion. A society "for promoting the abolition of slavery, for the relief of free negroes unlawfully held in bondage, and for improving the condition of the African race," had been organized in Philadelphia (1787), of which Franklin was president, and Dr. Rush and Tench Coxe secretaries. A similar society had been formed in New York, of which Jay was an active member; and this example already

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had been or soon was imitated in all the states from Vir- CHAPTER ginia northward.

II.

A few days after the commencement of the debate on 1790. the public debt, a petition from the yearly meeting of Feb. 11. the Quakers of Pennsylvania and Delaware, seconded by another from the Quakers of New York, had been laid before the House, in which it was suggested whether, notwithstanding "seeming impediments," occasioned by "the influence and artifice of particular persons, gov erned by the narrow, mistaken views of self-interest," it was not within the power of Congress "to exercise. justice and mercy, which, if adhered to," the petitioners could not doubt, "must produce the abolition of the slave trade."

Hartley moved the reference of this memorial to a special committee. Supported by Madison and his colleagues, Parker, Page, and White, by Lawrence, Sedgwick, Boudinot, Sherman, and Gerry, this motion was violently opposed by Smith of South Carolina, Jackson, Tucker, Baldwin, and Burke, not without many sneers at "the men in the gallery"—the Quaker deputation appointed to look after the petition" who had come here to meddle in a business with which they had nothing to do." Finally, on a suggestion of Clymer's, supported by one of the rules of the House, the memorial was suffered to lie over till the next day.

At the opening of the session that next day, another Feb. 12. petition was presented relating to the same subject, coming from the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery. It was signed by Franklin as president-one of the last public acts of his long and diversified career. He died within a few weeks afterward. "That mankind," said this memorial, "are all formed by the same Almighty Being, alike objects of his care, and. IV.-M

CHAPTER equally designed for the enjoyment of happiness, the II. Christian religion teaches us to believe, and the political 1790. creed of Americans fully coincides with that position.

Your memorialists, particularly engaged in attending to the distresses arising from slavery, believe it their indispensable duty to present this subject to your notice. They have observed, with real satisfaction, that many important and salutary powers are vested in you for promoting the welfare and securing the blessings of liberty to the people of the United States; and as they conceive that these blessings ought rightfully to be administered, without distinctions of color, to all descriptions of people, so they indulge themselves in the pleasing anticipation that nothing which can be done for the relief of the unhappy objects of their care will be either omitted or delayed.

"From a persuasion that equal liberty was originally the portion, and is still the birthright of all men, and influenced by the strong ties of humanity and the principles of the Constitution, your memorialists conceive themselves bound to use all justifiable endeavors to loosen the bonds of slavery, and promote a general enjoyment of the blessings of freedom. Under these impressions, they earnestly entreat your serious attention to the subject of slavery, that you will be pleased to countenance the restoration of liberty to those unhappy men who alone, in this land of freedom, are degraded into perpetual bondage, and who, amid the general joy of surrounding freemen, are groaning in servile subjection; that you will devise means for removing this inconsistency from the character of the American people; that you will promote mercy and justice toward this distressed race; and that you will step to the very verge of the power vested in you for discouraging every species of traffic in the persons of our fellow-men."