Cotton is King, and Pro-Slavery Arguments Part 37

We shall not lose sight of this fact, nor permit him to obscure it by his special pleadings and mystifications; since it serves to show that while, in the name of a "higher law," he denounces the Const.i.tution of his country, he at the same time commits a most flagrant outrage against that higher law itself.

The clause of the Const.i.tution which Mr. Seward denounces is as follows: "No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due." This clause, as Mr. Seward contemptuously says, is "from the Const.i.tution of the United States in 1787." He knows of only one other compact like this "in diplomatic history;" and that was made between despotic powers "in the year of grace 902, in the period called the Dark Ages." But whether this compact made by the fathers of the Republic, or the sayings and doings of Mr. Seward in regard to it, are the more worthy of the Dark Ages, it is not for him alone to determine.

"The law of nature," says he, "disavows such compacts; the law of nature, written on the hearts and consciences of freemen, repudiates them." If this be so, then it certainly follows that in founding States no such compacts should be formed. For, as Mr. Seward says, "when we are founding States, all these laws must be brought to the standard of the laws of G.o.d, and must be tried by that standard, and must stand or fall by it." This is true, we repeat; but the Senator who uttered this truth was _not_ founding States or forming a const.i.tution. He was living and acting under a const.i.tution already formed, and one which he had taken an oath to support. If, in the construction of this instrument, our fathers really followed "as precedents the abuses of tyrants and robbers," then the course of the Senator in question was plain: _he should have suffered martyrdom rather than take an oath to support it_.

For the law of nature, it is clear, permits no man first to take an oath to support such compacts, and then repudiate them. If they are at war with his conscience, then, in the name of all that is sacred, let him repudiate them, but, by all means, without having first placed himself under the necessity of repudiating, at the same time, the obligation of his oath.

There is a question among casuists, whether an oath extorted by force can bind a man to act in opposition to his conscience. But this was not Mr. Seward's case. His oath was not extorted. If he had refused to take it, he would have lost nothing _except an office_.

"There was deep philosophy," says he, "in the confession of an eminent English judge. When he had condemned a young woman to death, under the late sanguinary code of his country, for her first theft, she fell down dead at his feet. 'I seem to myself,' said he, 'to have been p.r.o.nouncing sentence, not against the prisoner, but against the law itself.'" Ay, there was something better than "deep philosophy" in that English judge; there was stern integrity; for, though he felt the law to be hard and cruel, yet, having taken an oath to support it, he hardly felt himself at liberty to dispense with the obligation of his oath. We commend his example to the Senator from New York.

But who is this Senator, or any other politician of the present day, that he should presume to pa.s.s so sweeping and so peremptory a sentence of condemnation on a compact made by the fathers of the Republic and ratified by the people of the United States? For our part, if we wished to find "the higher law," we should look neither into the Dark Ages nor into his conscience. We had infinitely rather look into the great souls of those by whom the Const.i.tution was framed, and by every one of whom the very compact which Mr. Seward p.r.o.nounces so infamous was cordially sanctioned.

"Your Const.i.tution and laws," exclaims Mr. Seward, "convert hospitality to the refugee from the most degrading oppression on earth into a crime, but all mankind except you esteem that hospitality a virtue." Not content with thus denouncing the "Const.i.tution and laws," he has elsewhere exhorted the people to an open resistance to their execution.

"It is," says he, in a speech at a ma.s.s-meeting in Ohio, "written in the Const.i.tution of the the United States," and "in violation to divine law,[209] that we shall surrender the fugitive slave who takes refuge at our fireside from his relentless pursuer." He then and there exhorts the people to resist the execution of this clear, this unequivocal, this _acknowledged_, mandate of the Const.i.tution! "Extend," says he, a "cordial welcome _to the fugitive who lays his weary limbs at your door_, and DEFEND HIM AS YOU WOULD YOUR HOUSEHOLD G.o.dS."

We shall not trust ourselves to characterize such conduct. In the calm, judicial language of the Chancellor of his own State such proceeding of Mr. Seward will find its most fitting rebuke. "Independent, however,"

says Chancellor Walworth, "_of any legislation on this subject either by the individual States or by Congress_, if the person whose services are claimed is in fact a fugitive from servitude under the laws of another State, _the const.i.tutional provision is imperative that he shall be delivered up to his master upon claim made_." Thus far, Mr. Seward concurs with the chancellor in opinion; but the latter continues--"and any state officer or private citizen, who owes allegiance to the United States, and has taken the usual oath to support the Const.i.tution thereof, cannot, WITHOUT INCURRING THE MORAL GUILT OF PERJURY, do any act to deprive the master of his right of recaption, when there is no real doubt that the person whose services are claimed is in fact the slave of the claimant."[210] Yet, regardless of the question whether the fugitive is a slave or not, the life and labors of Mr. Seward are, in a great measure, dedicated to a subversion of the const.i.tutional clause and right under consideration. He counsels open resistance! Yea, he exhorts the people to protect and defend fugitive slaves _as such_, and though they had confessed themselves to have fled from servitude! But we doubt not that "the law of nature, written on the hearts and consciences of freemen," will reverse this advice of his, and reaffirm the decision of the chancellor of his own State. Nay, wherever there exists a freeman with a real heart and conscience, there that decision already stands affirmed.

As Mr. Seward's arguments are more fully elaborated by Mr. Sumner, of Ma.s.sachusetts, so they will pa.s.s under review when we come to examine the speech of that Senator. In the mean time, we beg leave to lay before the reader a few living examples of the manner in which the law of nature, as written on the hearts and consciences of freemen, has expressed itself in regard to the points above considered.

"I recognize, indeed," says the Hon. R. C. Winthrop, of Boston, "a power above all human law-makers and a code above all earthly const.i.tutions!

And whenever I perceive a clear conflict of jurisdiction and authority between the Const.i.tution of my country and the laws of my G.o.d, my course is clear. I shall resign my office, whatever it may be, and renounce all connection with public service of any sort. Never, never, sir, will I put myself under the necessity of calling upon G.o.d to witness my promise to support a const.i.tution, any part of which I consider to be inconsistent with his commands.

"But it is a libel upon the Const.i.tution of the United States--and, what is worse, sir, it is a libel upon the great and good men who framed, adopted, and ratified it; it is a libel upon Was.h.i.+ngton and Franklin, and Hamilton and Madison, upon John Adams, and John Jay, and Rufus King; it is a libel upon them all, and upon the whole American people of 1789, who sustained them in their n.o.ble work, and upon all who, from that time to this, generation after generation, in any capacity,--national, munic.i.p.al, or state,--have lifted their hands to heaven in attestation of their allegiance to the government of their country;--it is a gross libel upon every one of them, to a.s.sert or insinuate that there is any such inconsistency! Let us not do such dishonor to the fathers of the Republic and the framers of the Const.i.tution."

Mr. Ashman, of Ma.s.sachusetts, after reciting the clause in the Const.i.tution which demands the restoration of fugitive slaves, proceeds as follows: "This reads very plainly, and admits of no doubt but that, so far as fugitive slaves are concerned, the Const.i.tution fully recognizes the right to reclaim them from within the limits of the free States. It is the Const.i.tution which we have all sworn to support, and which I hope we all mean to support; and I have no mental reservation excluding any of its clauses from the sanction of that oath. It is too late now to complain that such a provision is there. Our fathers, who formed that entire instrument, placed it there, and left it to us as an inheritance; and nothing but an amendment of the Const.i.tution, or a violation of our oaths, can tear it out. And, however much we may abhor slavery, there is no way for honorable, honest--nay, conscientious--men, who desire to live under our laws and our Const.i.tution, but to abide by it in its spirit."

In like manner, the Hon. S. A. Douglas, of Illinois, declares: "All I have to say on that subject is this, that the Const.i.tution provides that a fugitive from service in one State, escaping into another, 'shall be delivered up.' The Const.i.tution also provides that no man shall be a Senator unless he takes an oath to support the Const.i.tution. Then, I ask, how does a man acquire a right on this floor to speak, except by taking an oath to support and sustain the Const.i.tution of the United States? And when he takes that oath, I do not understand that he has a right to have a mental reservation, or entertain any secret equivocation that he excepts that clause which relates to the surrender of fugitives from service. I know not how a man reconciles it to his conscience to take that oath to support the Const.i.tution, when he believes that Const.i.tution is in violation of the law of G.o.d. If a man thus believes, and takes the oath, he commits perfidy to his G.o.d in order that he may enjoy the temporary honors of a seat upon this floor. In this point of view, it is simply a question of whether Senators will be true to their oaths and true to the Const.i.tution under which we live."

-- II. _The attack of Mr. Sumner on the Const.i.tution of his country._

If we have not noticed the arguments of Mr. Chase, of Ohio, it is because they are reproduced in the celebrated speech of Mr. Sumner, and because he has so fully indorsed the history and logic of this speech as to make it his own. Hence, in replying to the one of these Senators, we at the same time virtually reply to the other.

We select the speech of Mr. Sumner for examination, because it is generally considered the more powerful of the two. It is, indeed, the most elaborate speech ever made in the Senate of the United States, or elsewhere, on the subject of the Fugitive Slave Law. Even Mr. Weller found it "so handsomely embellished with poetry, both Latin and English, so full of cla.s.sical allusions and rhetorical flourishes," as to make it more palatable than he supposed an abolition speech could possibly be made. As to the abolitionists themselves, they seem to know no bounds in their enthusiastic admiration of this sublime effort of their champion.

We should not wonder, indeed, if many a female reformer had gone into hysterics over an oration which has received such violent bursts of applause from grave and dignified Senators. "By this effort," says Mr.

Hale, he has placed "himself side by side with the first orators of antiquity, and as far ahead of any living American orator as freedom is ahead of slavery. I believe that he has formed to-day a new era in the history of the politics and of the eloquence of the country; and that in future generations the young men of this nation will be stimulated to effort by the record of what an American Senator has this day done,"

etc.

We have no doubt that young men may attempt to imitate the speech in question; but, as they grow older, it is to be hoped that their taste will improve. The speech in question will make a "new era" in the tactics of abolitionism, and that is all. We shall see this when we come to examine this wonderful oration, which so completely ravished _three Senators_, and called forth such wild shouts of applause from the whole empire of abolitionism.

Mr. Chase seems almost equally delighted with this marvellous effort. "I avow my conviction, now and here," says he, "that, logically and historically, his argument is impregnable--entirely impregnable." . . .

. . . "In my judgment," he continues, "the speech of my friend from Ma.s.sachusetts will make a NEW ERA in American history." Indeed, Mr.

Sumner himself does not seem altogether dissatisfied with this effort, if we may judge from the manner in which it is referred to in his other speeches. We do not blame him for this. We can see no reason why he should be the only abolitionist in the universe who is not enraptured with his oration. But when he so "fearlessly a.s.serts" that his speech "has never been answered," we beg leave to a.s.sure him that it _may_ be refuted with the most perfect ease. For, indeed, its history is half fiction, and its logic wholly false: the first containing just enough of truth to deceive, and the last just enough of plansibility to convince those who are waiting, and watching, and longing to be convinced.

The first thing which strikes the mind, on reading the speech of Mr.

Sumner, is the strange logical incoherency of its structure. Its parts are so loosely hung together, and appear so distressingly disjointed, that one is frequently at a loss to perceive the design of the oration.

Its avowed object is to procure a repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850; but no one would ever imagine or suspect such a thing from the t.i.tle of the speech, which is as follows: "Freedom, national; Slavery, sectional." It is difficult, at first view, to perceive what logical connection this t.i.tle, or proposition, has with the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law. But if there be little or no logical connection between these things, we shall soon see how the choice of such a t.i.tle and topic of discourse opens the way for the rhetorician to make a most powerful appeal to the pa.s.sions and to the prejudices of his readers. We say, of his readers, because it is evident that the speech was made for Buncombe, and not for the Senate of the United States.

Mr. Sumner deems it necessary to refute the position that slavery is a national inst.i.tution, in order to set the world right with respect to the relations of the Federal Government to slavery. "The relations of the Government of the United States," says he,--"I speak of the National Government--to slavery, _though plain and obvious, are constantly misunderstood_." Indeed, nothing in history seems more remarkable than the amount of ignorance and stupidity which prevailed in the world before the appearance of the abolitionists, except the wonderful illuminations which accompanied their advent. "A popular belief at this moment," continues Mr. Sumner, "makes slavery a national inst.i.tution, and, of course, renders its support a national duty. The extravagance of this error can hardly be surpa.s.sed." In truth, it is so exceedingly extravagant, that we doubt if it really exists. It is certain, that we have no acquaintance, either historically or personally, with those who have fallen into so wild an absurdity.

It is true, there is "a popular belief"--nay, there is a deep-rooted national conviction--that the Government of the United States is bound to protect the inst.i.tution of slavery, in so far as this may be done by the pa.s.sage of a Fugitive Slave Law. This national conviction has spoken out in the laws of Congress; it has been ratified and confirmed by the judicial opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States, as well as by the decisions of the Supreme Courts of the three great non-slaveholding States of Ma.s.sachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania.

But no one, so far as we know, has ever deduced this obligation to protect slavery, in this respect, from the absurd notion that "it is a national inst.i.tution." No such deduction is to be found in any of the arguments of counsel before the courts above-mentioned, nor in the opinions of the courts themselves. We shrewdly suspect that it is to be found nowhere except in the fertile imagination of Mr. Sumner.

We concede that slavery is _not_ "a national inst.i.tution." In combating this position, Mr. Sumner is merely beating the air. We know that slavery is not national; it is local, being confined to certain States, and exclusively established by local or State laws. Hence, Mr. Sumner may fire off as much splendid rhetoric as he pleases at his men of straw. "Slavery national!" he indignantly exclaims: "Sir, this is all a mistake and absurdity, fit to take a place in some new collection of 'Vulgar Errors' by some other Sir Thomas Browne, with the ancient but exploded stories that the toad has a stone in its head and that ostriches digest iron." These may be very fine embellishments; they certainly have nothing to do with the point in controversy. The question is not whether slavery is a national inst.i.tution, but whether the National Government does not recognize slavery as a local inst.i.tution, and is not pledged to protect the master's right to reclaim the fugitive from his service. This is the question, and by its relevancy to this question the rhetoric of Mr. Sumner must be tried.

We do not say it has no such relevancy. Mr. Sumner beats the air, it is true, but he does not beat the air in vain. His declamation may have no logical bearing on the point in dispute, but, if you watch it closely, you will always find that it is most skillfully adapted to bring the prejudices and pa.s.sions of the reader to bear on that point. Though he may not be much of a logician, yet, it must be admitted, he is "skillful of fence." We should do him great injustice as an antagonist, at least before the tribunal of human pa.s.sion, if we should suppose that it is merely for the abstract glory of setting up a man of straw, and then knocking it down, that he has mustered all the powers of his logic and unfurled all the splendors of his rhetoric. He has a design in all this, which we shall now proceed to expose.

Here are two distinct questions. First, Is slavery a national inst.i.tution? Secondly, Has Congress the power to pa.s.s a Fugitive Slave Law? These two questions are, we repeat, perfectly distinct; and hence, if Mr. Sumner wished to discuss them fairly and honestly, he should have argued each one by itself. We agree with him in regard to the first; we dissent _toto clo_ from him in regard to the last. But he has not chosen to keep them separate, or to discuss each one by itself. On the contrary, he has, as we have seen, connected them together as premiss and conclusion, and he keeps them together through the first portion of his speech. Most a.s.suredly Mr. Sumner knows that one of the very best ways in the world to cause a truth or proposition to be rejected is to bind it up with a manifest error or absurdity. Yet the proposition for which we contend--that Congress has the power to support slavery by the pa.s.sage of a Fugitive Slave Law--is bound up by him with the monstrous absurdity that "slavery is a national inst.i.tution;" and both are denounced together as if both were equally absurd. One instance, out of many, of this unfair mode of proceeding, we shall now lay before our readers.

"The Const.i.tution contains no power," says he, "to make a king or to support kingly rule. With similar reason it may be said that it contains no power to make a slave, or to support a system of slavery. The absence of all such power is hardly more clear in one case than in the other.

But, if there be no such power, all national legislation upholding slavery must be unconst.i.tutional and void."

Thus covertly, and in company with the supposed power of Congress to make slaves or to inst.i.tute slavery, Mr. Sumner denounces the power of Congress to enact a Fugitive Slave Law! He not only denounces it, but treats it as absurd in the extreme; just as absurd, indeed, as it would be to a.s.sert that Congress had power "to support kingly rule!" We can listen to the arguments of Mr. Sumner; but we cannot accept his mere opinion as authority that the power of Congress to enact such a law is so glaringly unconst.i.tutional, is so monstrously absurd; for, however pa.s.sionately that opinion may be declaimed, we cannot forget that a Fugitive Slave Law was pa.s.sed by the Congress of 1793, received the signature of George Was.h.i.+ngton, and, finally, the judicial sanction of the Supreme Court of the United States. Mr. Sumner is but a man.

This advantage of mixing up with a glaring falsehood the idea he wishes to be rejected is not the only one which Mr. Sumner derives from his man of straw. By combating the position--"the popular belief," as he calls it--that "slavery is a national inst.i.tution," he lays open a wide field for his peculiar powers of declamation. He calls up all the fathers--North and South--to bear witness against slavery, in order to show that it is not a national inst.i.tution. He quotes colleges, and churches, and patriots, against slavery. Not content with this, he pours down furious invectives of his own, with a view to render slavery as odious as possible. But, since the simple question is, _What saith the Const.i.tution_--why this fierce crusade against slavery? In deciding this very question, namely, the const.i.tutionality of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793, a high judicial authority has said that "the abstract proposition of the justice or injustice of slavery is wholly irrelevant here, and, I apprehend, ought not to have the slightest influence upon any member of this court."[211]

It ought not to have--and it did not have--the slightest influence on the highest judicial tribunal of New York, in which the above opinion was delivered. Much as the author of that opinion (Mr. Senator Bishop) abhorred slavery, he did not permit such an influence to reach his judgment. It would have contaminated his judicial integrity. But although before a judicial tribunal, about to decide on the const.i.tutionality of a Fugitive Slave Law, the abstract proposition of the justice or injustice of slavery is out of place, yet at the bar of pa.s.sion and prejudice it is well calculated, as Mr. Sumner must know, to exert a tremendous influence. Hence, if he can only get up the horror of his readers against slavery before he comes to the real question, namely, the const.i.tutionality of the Fugitive Slave Law, he knows that his victory will be more than half gained. But we admonish him that pa.s.sion and prejudice can only give a temporary eclat to his argument.

So much for the unfairness of Mr. Sumner. If we should notice all such instances of artful design in his speech, we should have no s.p.a.ce for his logic. To this we would now invite the attention of the reader, in order to see if it be really "impregnable."

As we have already intimated, Mr. Sumner does not, like Mr. Seward, openly denounce the Const.i.tution of his country. On the contrary, he professes the most profound respect for every part of that instrument, not even excepting the clause which demands the restoration of the fugitive from labor. But an examination of his argument, both _historical_ and _logical_, will enable us, we trust, to estimate this profession at its real intrinsic worth.

We shall begin with his argument from history. In the examination of this argument, we beg to excuse ourselves from any further notice of all that vast array of historical proofs to show that "freedom is national and slavery sectional."[212] We shall consider those proofs alone which relate to the real point in controversy, namely, Has Congress the power to pa.s.s a Fugitive Slave Law?

Mr. Sumner argues, from the well-known sentiments of the framers of the Const.i.tution with respect to slavery, that they intended to confer no such power on Congress. Thus, after quoting the sentiments of Gouverneur Morris, of Elbridge Gerry, of Roger Sherman, and James Madison, he adds: "In the face of these unequivocal statements, it is absurd to suppose that they consented _unanimously_ to any provision by which the National Government, the work of their own hands, could be made the most offensive instrument of slavery." Such is the historical argument of Mr.

Sumner. Let us see what it is worth.

Elbridge Gerry had said: "We ought to be careful NOT _to give any sanction to slavery_;"--language repeatedly quoted, and underscored as above, by Mr. Sumner. It is absurd, he concludes, to suppose that a man who could use such language had the least intention to confer a power on Congress to support slavery by the pa.s.sage of a Fugitive Slave Law. This is one branch of his historical argument. It may appear perfectly conclusive to Mr. Sumner, and "entirely impregnable" to Mr. Chase; but, after all, it is not quite so invulnerable as they imagine. Mr. Sumner stopped his historical researches at a most convenient point for his argument. If he had only read a little further, he would have discovered that this same identical Elbridge Gerry was in the Congress of 1793, and VOTED FOR the Fugitive Slave Law then pa.s.sed!

It fares no better with the historical argument to prove the opinion or intention of Roger Sherman. He had declared, it is true, that he was opposed to any clause in the Const.i.tution "acknowledging men to be property." But we should not, with Mr. Sumner, infer from this that he never intended that Congress should possess a power to legislate in reference to slavery. For, unfortunately for such a conclusion, however confidently it may be drawn, or however dogmatically a.s.serted, Roger Sherman himself was in the Senate of 1793, and was actually on the committee which reported the Fugitive Slave Law of that session! Thus, although the premiss of Mr. Sumner's argument is a historical fact, yet its conclusion comes directly into conflict with another historical fact!

We cannot, in the same way, refute the argument from the language of Gouverneur Morris, who said "that he never would concur in upholding domestic slavery," because he was not in the Congress of 1793. But Robert Morris was there, and, although he helped to frame the Const.i.tution in 1787, he uttered not a syllable against the const.i.tutionality of the Fugitive Slave Law. Indeed, this law pa.s.sed the Senate by resolution simply, _the yeas and nays not having been called for_!

The words of Mr. Madison, who "thought it wrong to admit in the Const.i.tution the idea that there could be property in man," are four or five times quoted in Mr. Sumner's speech. As we have already seen,[213]

there cannot be, in the strict sense of the terms, "property in man;"

for the soul is the man, and no one, except G.o.d, can own the soul. Hence Mr. Madison acted wisely, we think, in wis.h.i.+ng to exclude such an expression from the Const.i.tution, inasmuch as it would have been misunderstood by Northern men, and only shocked their feelings without answering any good purpose.

When we say that slaves are property, we merely mean that their masters have a right to their service or labor. This idea is recognized in the Const.i.tution, and _this right is secured_. We ask no more. As Mr.

Madison, and the whole South, had the _thing_, he did not care to wrangle about the _name_. We are told, again and again, that the word _slave_ does not appear in the Const.i.tution. Be it so. We care not, since our slaves are there recognized as "persons held to service" by those to whom "such service is due." It is repeated without end that the "Const.i.tution acts on slaves as _persons_, and not as property."

Granted; and if Northern men will, according to the mandate of the Const.i.tution, only deliver up our fugitive servants, we care not whether they restore them as persons or as property. If we may only reclaim them as persons, and regain their service, we are perfectly satisfied. We utterly despise all such verbal quibbling.

Mr. Madison was above it. He acted wisely, we repeat, in refusing to shock the mind of any one, by insisting upon a mere word, and upon a word, too, which might not have conveyed a correct idea of his own views. But that Mr. Madison could, as he undersood the terms, regard slaves as property, we have the most incontestable evidence. For in the Convention of Virginia, called to ratify the Const.i.tution of the United States, he said, "Another clause secures us that _property_ which we now possess. At present, if any slave elopes to any of those States where slaves are free, he becomes emanc.i.p.ated by their laws, for the laws of the States are uncharitable to one another in this respect." He then quotes the provision from the Const.i.tution relative to fugitives from labor, and adds: "This clause was expressly inserted to enable _owners_ of slaves to reclaim them." So much for Mr. Sumner's main argument from the language of the members of the Convention of 1787.

Arguing from the sentiments of that convention with respect to slavery, he concludes that nothing could have been further from their intentions than to confer upon Congress the power to pa.s.s a uniform Fugitive Slave Law. He boldly a.s.serts, that if a proposition to confer such a power upon Congress had "been distinctly made it would have been distinctly denied." "But no person in the convention," he says, "_not one of the reckless partisans of slavery, was so audacious as to make the proposition_." Now we shall show that the above statement of his is diametrically opposed to the truth. We shall show that the members of the convention in question were perfectly willing to confer such a power upon Congress.

The reason why they were so is obvious to any one who has a real knowledge of the times about whose history Mr. Sumner so confidently declaims. This reason is well stated in the language of the Chancellor of New York whom we have already quoted. "The provision," says he, "as to persons escaping from servitude in one State into another, appears by their journal to have been adopted by a unanimous vote of the convention. At that time the existence of involuntary servitude, or the relation of master and servant, was known to and recognized by the laws of every State in the Union except Ma.s.sachusetts, and _the legal right of recaption by the master existed in all_, AS A PART OF THE CUSTOMARY OR COMMON LAW OF THE WHOLE CONFEDERACY." Hence, instead of shocking the convention, a clause recognizing such right would have been merely declaratory of the "customary or common law," which then universally prevailed. The "history of the times" confirms this view, and furnishes no evidence against it.

Mr. Sumner tries to make a different impression. He lays great stress on the fact that it was not until late in the convention that the first clause relative to the surrender of fugitive slaves was introduced. But this fact agrees more perfectly with our view than with his. There was no haste about the introduction of such a provision, because it was well known that, whenever it should be introduced, it would pa.s.s in the affirmative without difficulty. And, in fact, when it was introduced, it "WAS UNANIMOUSLY ADOPTED." This single fact speaks volumes.