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of foreign mi milfed text of mess manon the North vas musei. Xalification. it was mid led frette o semission, ora lissention fie The New England States, which had in. iteen Tears 1-ore wrrested me ment if session, now ei the jere made it is leicates. John C. Calicum. he great mullifer. Vas he mark of her try. It was in this contest, is every ie knows, hat the great rar f New Engand. In. Täser yn bra the greatest inteileemal effort of his fe,' f not of the human mind. The whole North was deeded by is loquence: and became intoxicated with as ictions.

of the minority. riginated in New

Mach has been said about the Vorher and the Southem theories of the Constitution. The he words. however, the theories of the majority and For the Southern theory, as it is allei, England: and. passing om minority to permanent resting place in the South. Yet it may, with truth, be called the Southern theory: since the South bas always been in the minority in the new Chicn.

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Mr. Webster Hlived to pronounce a splendid eulogy on the virtues, the patriotism, and the genius of John C. Calhonn: with whom he had so long served in the Senate of the United States. But the successors of Mr. Webster have, for more than eighteen long months, held the bosom friend and the peer of John C. Calhoun in prison at Fortress Monroe, as if he were already a convicted felon and traitor. Yet is it, as we have seen. his only crime, that he sat at the feet of Thomas Jeferson, the immortal author of the Declaration of Independence" and there learned the right of secession. Shall the people, then. who sang loud hozannas to the great master. follow the equally great disciple with the cry of crucify him, crucify him? Or shall it be said, that they voted the Presidency for the one, and a prison for the other?

CHAPTER XIX.

The Causes of Secession.

In the preceding chapters, the Constitutional right of secession has, it seems to me, been demonstrated. If so, then in the eye of reason, the Southern States are acquitted of every offence against the Constitution, or the supreme law of the land. But, however clear a legal or constitutional right, it may not be always proper to exercise it. If the Southern States exercised the right of secession merely because they possessed that right, or merely because they were beaten at an election, or for any such "light and transient cause;" then they committed a great wrong. Then, although they violated no law of the land, they committed a great and grievous wrong against the moral law of the world, by a capricious exercise of their sovereign right and power. Hence, the vindication of the Southern States in the forum of conscience, as well as in that of the law, demands an exposition of the causes of secession. It would require a volume to do justice to this subject; and yet, at present, a brief sketch is all that can be attempted.

The Balance of Power.

From the foundation of the American Union to the present day, the provision of its Constitution for the frac tional representation of slaves, has been more talked about, and less understood, than any other clause of that "sacred instrument." One would suppose, that if any one really

desired to ascertain the reason or design of this "singular provision," as it is called, he would look into the debates of the Convention by which it was inserted in the Constitution. In these debates, as reported in "The Madison Papers," the reason or design of the fathers in the enactment of that clause is as clear as the noonday sun. Yet, in all that has been written by the North on the subject, there is not even a glimmering of light as to that reason or design. Men make books, says old Burton, as apothecaries make medicines, by pouring them out of one bottle into another. This has most emphatically been the way in which men have made books on "the American Question;" and, in the case before us, the bottles were originally filled, not at the pure fountains of historic truth, but from the turbid streams of ignorance, falsehood, and misrepresentation. Yet, for three quarters of a century, has all this vile stuff been continually poured out of one book into another. Accordingly, we find it in a hundred books on both sides of the Atlantic; uttered with just as much confidence as if the authors had some knowledge on the subject.

Thus are we gravely told, and with great confidence, that "the weakest point in the Constitution lies elsewhere. It lies in that truckling to the slave-power which is obvious in it.... It lies especially in that singular provision for what is termed 'black' or 'slave' representation; whereby alone, amongst all species of property, that in human flesh is made a source of political power."* Now, if any thing in history is certain, it is that, after a protracted debate, the Convention of 1787 agreed that population, and population alone, should constitute the basis of representation. The slaves were not represented at all as property. This is evident, not only from the debates of the Convention of 1787, but from the very face of the Constitution itself. "Representatives," says that document, History, by T. M. Ludlow, pp. 44-5.

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"shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective numbers, (not one word is said about property), which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, threefifths of all other persons." Thus, in this very clause, the slaves are called "persons," and are to be represented as such, not as property. Hence, when Mr. Greely, in his "American Conflict," wishes to prove that the Constitution regards slaves as "persons," he quotes the clause in question. Nay, Mr. Ludlow himself, when it suits his purpose, can recognize the truth, that the Constitution "never speaks of the slave as a property, but as a person.' "* If, indeed, slaves had not been regarded as persons, they would not have been admitted into the basis of representation at all.

Now, did the North truckle to the South, in conceding that slaves are "persons?" Mr. Paterson, of New Jersey, and some other Northern members, endeavored to exclude slaves from the basis of representation on the ground that they were "property;" but Mr. Butler and Mr. C. C. Pinckney, both of South Carolina, insisted that they were "persons," that they were a portion of the laboring and productive "population" of the South; and as such, should be included in the basis of representation on a footing of equality with other "inhabitants." The Convention decided that they were "persons." Was this decision correct? Or was it, on the contrary, a mean "truckling to the slave power?"

In the declamations on this subject, it is usually taken for granted by Northern writers, as well as by Mr. Ludlow, that free citizens or voters alone are included in the basis of representation for the North, while three-fifths of the slaves are embraced in it for the South. Hence, * Page 51.

this is vehemently denounced as a "singular provision," as a "strange anomaly," as a most undue advantage to the South. But the fact is not so. The assumption is utterly false. By the decision of the Convention, and by the very terms of the Constitution, "the whole number of free persons" whether men, women, children, or paupers, are included in the basis of representation. All "persons," of every age, color, and sex, are included in that basis. Hence, Mr. Ludlow is mistaken in calling the clause in question, "the provision" for "black" representation? The blacks, as such, were included in the general provision, and ranked as equal to the whites. In like manner, Professor Cairnes errs in saying the clause under consideration "is known as the three-fifths vote."* No such thing as a "three-fifths vote" is known to the Constitution of the United States; and the name is the coinage of ignorance. The three-fifths clause has nothing to do with votes or voting. No slave could cast the three-fifths, or any fraction, of a vote. The free blacks were, in most cases, denied the exercise of the elective franchise. It was in counting the number, not of those who should vote, but only of those who should make up the basis of representation that five slaves were to be reckoned equal to three white persons, or to three free negroes.

Now, why was this? Had the Convention any rule of vulgar fractions, by which a slave was shown to be only the three-fifths of a person? And if they had, did not the clause in question result from a mathematical calculation, rather than from a "truckling to the slave power?" or, if that was treated as a question of vulgar fractions, why did the Convention stop there? Why not raise other questions of the same kind? Why not consider the problem, if a full-grown slave is only the three-fifths of a person, what fraction of a person is the infant of a day old, before the power of thought, or of local motion, has even The Slave Power, chap. vi.

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