And of all the great questions, dividing the
framers of that Constitution, perhaps none of them required a higher
degree of self abnegation and patriotism than those touching human
Slavery.
The situation was one of extreme delicacy. The necessity for a closer
and stronger Union of all the States was apparently absolute, yet this
very necessity seemed to place a whip in the hands of a few States, with
which to coerce the greater number of States to do their bidding. It
seemed that the majority must yield to a small minority on even vital
questions, or lose everything.
Thus it was, that instead of an immediate interdiction of the African
Slave Trade, Congress was empowered to prohibit it after the lapse of
twenty years; that instead of the basis of Congressional Representation
being the total population of each State, and that of direct taxation
the total property of each State, a middle ground was conceded, which
regarded the Slaves as both persons and property, and the basis both of
Representation and of Direct Taxation was fixed as being the total Free
population "plus three-fifths of all other persons" in each State; and
that there was inserted in the Constitution a similar clause to that
which we have seen was almost simultaneously incorporated in the
Ordinance of '87, touching the reclamation and return to their owners of
Fugitive Slaves from the Free States into which they may have escaped.
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