The ordinance as passed contained many provisions in addition to those
set out in Virginia's deed of cession. It was necessary, therefore,
that Virginia should by proper enactment reaffirm her deed. The
General Assembly of Virginia at its next session accordingly passed an
act fixing for all time the validity of both deed and ordinance.[31]
Mr. Bancroft says:
"A powerful committee on which were Carrington, Monroe, Edmund
Randolph and Grayson, successfully brought forward the bill by which
Virginia confirmed the ordinance for the colonization of all the
territory then in the possession of the United States, by freemen
alone."[32]
Thus the old commonwealth which had won the land from England and the
Indians bore a foremost part in the legislative work by which slavery
was forever excluded from the empire north of the Ohio River.
-----
Footnote 23:
_Hening's Statutes_, Vol. IX, p. 471.
Footnote 24:
_History of Slavery in Virginia_, Ballagh, p. 23.
Footnote 25:
_Life of Patrick Henry_, W. W. Henry, Vol. I, p. 583.
Footnote 26:
_Critical Period of American History_, Fiske, p. 191.
Footnote 27:
_Idem_, p. 195.
Footnote 28:
_Writings of Jefferson_, Ford, Vol. IV, p. 181.
Footnote 29:
_Critical Period of American History_, Fiske, p. 205.
Footnote 30:
_History of United States_, Bancroft, Vol. VI, p. 290.
Footnote 31:
_Hening's Statutes_, Vol. XII, p. 780.
Footnote 32:
_History of United States_, Bancroft, Vol. VI, p. 291.
V
FOREIGN SLAVE TRADE AND THE CONSTITUTION:
VIRGINIA'S POSITION
The supreme opportunity for suppressing the importation of slaves and
thus hastening the day of emancipation came with the adoption of the
Federal Constitution. As we have seen, with every increase in the
number of slaves the difficulties and dangers of emancipation were
multiplied. The hope of emancipation rested in stopping their further
importation and dispersing throughout the land those who had already
found a home in our midst. To put an end to "this pernicious traffic"
was therefore the supreme duty of the hour, but despite Virginia's
protests and appeals the foreign slave trade was legalized by the
Federal Constitution for an additional period of twenty years. The
nation knew not the day of its visitation—with blinded eyes and
reckless hand it sowed the dragon's teeth from which have sprung the
conditions and problems which even to-day tax the thought and
conscience of the American people.
This action of the convention is declared by Mr. Fiske, to have been
"a bargain between New England and the far South."
"New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Connecticut," he adds, "consented to
the prolonging of the foreign slave trade for twenty years, or until
1808; and in return South Carolina and Georgia consented to the clause
empowering Congress to pass Navigation Acts and otherwise regulate
commerce by a simple majority of votes."[33]