THE EARLY FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.
"The policy to sustain which Mr. Lincoln was elected President in 1860
was first definitely outlined by Jefferson in 1784. It was the policy of
forbidding slavery in the National Territory."
_John Fiske_.
The history of slavery from the opening scenes of the Revolution to the
meeting of the First Congress affords a curious example of the direct
influence of self-interest upon the opinions of mankind. The opening of
the Revolution saw an emphatic and unanimous expression against slavery
and the slave trade, and a general spirit of emancipation was abroad.
Two years later this had changed, for when the Declaration was
promulgated there was no mention of anti-slavery sentiments in it, and
as Independence became more and more assured, the feeling against
slavery seems to have weakened, and finally, when a serious attempt to
perfect the Union was made, the slave question was decided by expediency
and not by principle.
In 1773 and 1774, when the colonists spoke their final defiance against
Great Britain, and the latter launched her retaliatory measures, the
climax was reached. It is to be kept in mind that at this time slavery
existed in every one of the Colonies. The First Continental Congress,
representing all the Colonies except Georgia (who agreed to concur), met
at Philadelphia in September, 1774, to determine what should be done in
this grave crisis. It turned out to be largely a Peace Congress, but a
protest, several addresses and a non-importation and non-consumption
agreement was signed. One of the Articles of this agreement provided
that "We will neither import nor purchase any slave imported after the
first day of December next, after which time we will wholly discontinue
the slave trade, and will neither be concerned in it ourselves, nor will
we hire our vessels or sell our commodities or manufactures to those who
are concerned in it." This important and far-reaching resolution
received the unanimous support of all the Colonies. Would that its
spirit had been kept alive!
[Illustration: The White House, Washington, D. C.]
Almost two years after the First Continental Congress met (the
Revolution having been started in the meantime) the Declaration of
Independence was adopted, but there was no expression in it against
slavery or the slave trade. The original draft of that instrument
contained a fierce denunciation of England's part in the slave trade:
"He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most
sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who
never offended him; capturing and carrying them into slavery in another
hemisphere, or to incur a miserable death in their transportation
thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of Infidel Powers, is
the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain. Determined to keep
open a market where men could be bought and sold, he has prostituted his
negative by suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or
restrain this execrable commerce."
These burning words were from the pen of Jefferson, who had been the
most active in his opposition to slavery. They were omitted from the
Declaration, out of compliance to South Carolina and Georgia, but they
voiced unquestionably the sentiment of a large majority of the
Continental Congress. This was the first fatal concession to South
Carolina and Georgia, and we shall find them again united and
influencing the other Southern Colonies to maintain a bold stand for
slavery at the most critical period in the nation's history.
On the same day in June, 1776, that the Committee was appointed to draft
the Declaration of Independence, Congress resolved that "A Committee be
appointed to prepare and digest the form of a Confederation to be
entered into between the Colonies." The work of this Committee was the
Articles of Confederation, which were presented in November, 1777, for
ratification by the States. These Articles contained no anti-slavery
sentiments, and we are only concerned with them in noting the unexpected
and most important results which came up before the ratification was
completed. Several of the States claimed a right to the territory west
of the Alleghanies to the Mississippi under their original charter.
Their claims were conflicting, and Maryland refused to ratify the
Articles of Confederation until the land-claiming States should
relinquish all their rights to Congress. For a number of years these
States were obdurate, but Maryland held out resolutely and bravely, and
finally, by her firm action and the magnanimity of New York and
Virginia, the question was settled by the cession of the disputed lands
to Congress. The acquisition of the Northwest Territory is one of the
great turning points in American history, for we shall see that the
subsequent development of this territory was of no less importance than
the saving of the Union from annihilation by the slave power.
Thomas Jefferson was the most urgent against slavery of all the founders
of the nation. His statesmanship foresaw the evils negro slavery would
bring upon the nation's social and political development, and his nature
was stirred by the great moral wrong. Long before the Declaration of
Independence he worked untiringly in Virginia to bring about a sentiment
against the slave trade, and his efforts met with success. His fierce
denunciation of England's part in the slave trade was stricken from the
Declaration, but he did not give up the fight, although the material
interests of the South thwarted his plans for the moment. When, by the
unforeseen results attendant upon the ratification of the Articles of
Confederation, that imperial domain reaching from Pennsylvania to the
Mississippi and from the Ohio to the Lakes became national territory,
Jefferson, with the prescience of a mighty genius, saw an opportunity to
deal a death blow to slavery. This magnificent public domain,
subsequently to be divided into the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois,
Wisconsin and Michigan, was given to the nation on condition that it
should be cut up into States, to be admitted when they had a certain
population, and that the land should be sold to pay the debts of the
United States. Throughout this vast region there were very few people,
and there had been no social, political or economical development, and
so the only opposition which could come in Congress to any measure for
the future government of the Territory would be from the original
States. No sooner had the cession been fully made than Jefferson
suggested a plan which, if it had succeeded, would have confined slavery
North and South to the mountain boundaries of the original States. His
plan for the government of this new territory, among other things,
provided that after the year 1800 slavery should be prohibited in it. He
went beyond this and advocated and urgently solicited Virginia, North
Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia to cede their rights in the land
west of the Mountains, and he would have had slavery prohibited in this
territory also after the year 1800. His plan was no more or less than to
prohibit slavery after the year 1800 in all land between the Alleghanies
and the Mississippi, from the Lakes to Florida.
On April 19, 1784, Jefferson's Ordinance came up for consideration.
North Carolina moved that the clause prohibiting slavery after 1800 be
stricken out; South Carolina seconded the motion, which was put in the
form, "Shall the words moved to be stricken out stand?" Six States voted
that the clause should stand, three were opposed to it, but as the
Articles of Confederation required the votes of nine States, the motion
was lost and the Ordinance, with the slavery clause taken out, was then
adopted.
The following year Congress made inducements so attractive that in a
short time several companies were organized and bought large tracts in
the new National Territory; and as they purposed settling on their
purchases at once, Congress agreed upon a more elaborate plan of
government and laws than those set forth in the Ordinance of 1784. The
famous Ordinance of 1787 was the result of this agreement. Mr. Jefferson
was not present at the time of its adoption, having been sent as
Minister to France, but the influence of his work and sentiments were
felt, and his ideas were adopted in a new form. The new Ordinance
repealed the old one, and among other things provided that the Territory
should be cut up into not less than three nor more than five States, all
of which were to be admitted into the Union when they had a population
of 60,000 free inhabitants. The States which might be formed were
forever to remain a part of the United States, and it was declared that
the Ordinance was to be considered as a compact between the original
States and the people and States of the new territory, and forever to
remain unalterable unless by common consent. Most important and
far-reaching of all was the Article,
"There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said
territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the party
shall have been duly convicted; Provided always, that any person
escaping into the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed
in any one of the original States, such fugitive may be lawfully
reclaimed, and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or
service, as aforesaid."
With slavery forever prohibited in such a large territory, with the
Ordinance beyond repeal, and secession condemned, the Ordinance of 1787
stands out as one of the most remarkable and most important enactments
in American history. What the Declaration of Independence and the War
had obtained, and the Constitution was to make more perfect--the Union
--the development of the country under the Ordinance of 1787 was to
preserve. The South yielded to the strong anti-slavery clause in this
ordinance because a fugitive slave clause was added to it, and because
she had a plan of making the territory west of Virginia, North Carolina,
South Carolina and Georgia slave territory. This was done shortly
afterwards, when two years later South Carolina and North Carolina, and
Georgia in 1802, ceded their western claims to Congress on the express
condition that it should be slave soil, and Congress accepted the
territory on that condition; Kentucky being admitted as a slave State in
1792.
While the national greatness and safety were being worked out in the
West, affairs were in a miserable condition in the East, owing to the
radical defects in the Articles of Confederation which had been in
operation since 1781. The cup of bitter national humiliation was being
drained to the dregs, but fortunately the best men of the country
finally succeeded in calling a Convention to revise the Articles. The
Convention met at Philadelphia in May, 1787, and by September had
adopted a new Constitution.
The great struggle between the North and the South began in the
Constitutional Convention. Slavery and the conflicting commercial
interests were the difficult questions which divided the country and
resulted in the first of the Compromises that held off the Civil War for
so many years. It was decided to have an equal representation of States
in the Senate and an unequal representation in the House, based upon
population; but should slaves be counted as population? This and the
other slavery questions which came up in the Convention threatened to
disrupt the proceedings entirely. There were at this time about 675,000
slaves in the country, of which number fully 625,000 were in the South.
South Carolina, henceforth to be so active for the interests of the
South, immediately claimed that these slaves should be considered as
population to be counted in fixing the representation in the House. The
North argued that the slaves were chattels and should not be counted,
for it was seen at a glance that if this enormous number of slaves were
to be counted on any basis, the political power of the South would be
greatly increased. South Carolina made open and repeated threats to
withdraw from the Confederacy, and the situation was serious, because,
without her and the other Southern Colonies, who would unquestionably be
influenced by her, the work of the Convention would not be ratified, and
there would be no Union. The inexorable necessity of the hour demanded a
compromise, and it was decided that in apportioning the Representatives
there should be added to the whole number of free persons three-fifths
of all other persons. This was equivalent to saying that five slaves in
the South should be counted the same as three white persons in the
North.
In regard to the slave trade there was a sentiment in all the States
except Georgia and South Carolina against it, because five slaves
counted as three whites, and because almost all of the eminent men North
and South were at this time opposed to Slavery itself as not only a
moral wrong, but as something which would injure the development of the
country. The Southern planters insisted upon a continuation of the slave
trade, but at the same time they were fearful that the North might tax
their exports. The second great Compromise was affected, and it was
agreed that the importation of such persons as any of the States might
think proper to admit should not be prohibited by Congress prior to
1808, but a tax on each person so admitted might be imposed, not
exceeding $10, and that no tax or duty should be laid on articles
exported from any State. A Fugitive Slave Clause very similar to that
contained in the Ordinance of 1787 was also added.
By these Compromises, especially the one giving representation for
slaves, the South was given that tremendous political power which she
wielded so long to threaten and coerce the North to her bidding. The
Slave Power was politically enthroned, not to be finally dislodged until
the election of Mr. Lincoln. At this early period, however, it was
firmly and honestly believed that in a very short time slavery would
disappear in all of the Colonies, as it was already dying out rapidly in
the North, and it was fully believed that after 1808, when the slave
trade should be prohibited, slavery would become extinct. It must be
remembered that at this time cotton was not a staple of the South, and
there was nothing seriously present or threatened, in the social or
economical development of the South, which made slavery absolutely
necessary. Nobody foresaw how greatly cotton was to add to the wealth
and standing of the South, and nobody foresaw the great injury which the
Constitution was to do the North.
When Washington was inaugurated, April 30, 1789, the United States
reached from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, and from the Lake of the
Woods, the Great Lakes, the St. Lawrence and St. Croix Rivers southward
to Florida, which then extended to the Mississippi and was owned by
Spain.
All of the threatening phases of the slave question had been compromised
by the various provisions in the Constitution, and the common territory
of the nation had been practically partitioned between Freedom and
Slavery, with the Ohio River as the dividing line. With some exceptions
the Northern States still possessed a large number of slaves, New York
and New Jersey having the greatest number (33,000 out of the 40,000
still in the North), but not only in these States, but throughout the
North, emancipation was making rapid progress.
The population of the country was scattered along the Atlantic seaboard,
but the migration to the west of the Alleghanies had set in strongly
both north and south of the Ohio River; the settlers from Virginia and
the States south of her carrying with them, westward, the prejudices and
customs of their mother States, while the settlers north of the Ohio
River took with them into the wilderness the energy and thrift of the
East, and its spirit of freedom and emancipation for all individuals,
laying the foundation of those great States which, in later years,
untrammeled by the commercial conservatism of the East, were so
outspoken and sturdy in their expressions against slavery. The first
census, taken in 1790, showed a population of 3,929,827, classed and
divided between the North and South as follows:
Free
White. Negroes. Slave.
North .......... 1,900,976 27,109 40,370
South .......... 1,271,488 32,357 657,527
These figures are interesting because of the political effect that the
population of the two sections had upon the representation in the House.
The South was still devoting herself to the raising of tobacco, rice,
indigo, and several lesser staples, but since the close of the
Revolution, owing to the dying out of the indigo plant, a new staple had
received considerable attention. Cotton had been cultivated in Virginia
by the early settlers, but little attention had been paid to it, and
only enough was produced for domestic use; but after the close of the
Revolution it gradually came to be cultivated in all the Southern
States, and it was quickly discovered that being an indigenous plant it
grew very rapidly, and the climate, soil and the great number of slaves
at hand were favorable toward making it, with some attention, a most
promising and valuable product.
The development of cotton manufacture had been gradual but certain to
this period, which saw the triumph and use of the mechanical inventions
of Hargreave, Arkwright, Crompton and Cartwright. The steam engine was
introduced to supply motive power, and only one thing stood in the way
of an enormous production of the new staple. The separation of the seed
from the cotton fibre was a tedious and time-consuming task; one negro
could only remove the seeds from about two pounds of cotton a day, and
consequently only a small amount could be sent to market.
In 1790 not a pound of cotton was exported from the United States. In
1793, Eli Whitney, of Massachusetts, who was temporarily in Georgia,
invented his Cotton Gin, one of the earliest and most remarkable of the
many great inventions of Americans. This invention was productive of
most important and far-reaching consequences. It caused an industrial
revolution in the South by making cotton the great staple. The
production increased by leaps and bounds, bringing great wealth and
increasing social and political power to the South. With the earlier
form of the new invention the seeds could be removed from about one
hundred pounds of cotton a day. In 1792, 192,000 pounds were exported to
Europe; in 1795, after Whitney's invention, nearly six million pounds
were exported. The value of the export in 1800 was $5,700,000; in 1820,
it was $20,000,000. These figures represented enormous wealth in those
days.
Whatever sentiment in the South against slavery had survived the
Constitutional period now disappeared completely. Cotton brought about a
new view, and from being an evil to be eradicated in some way in the
course of time, it was now regarded as absolutely necessary to the
social and political welfare of the South. The strongest of human
passions, avarice, ambition and worldly interest now bound the South
closer than ever to slavery. The slaves produced cotton--which was
wealth--and wealth brought independence and social distinction; besides
the slave was a political advantage of great importance, because five of
them, without any voice in the matter themselves, counted as three white
persons. Under these auspices grew the Slave Power, soon to be a bold,
threatening and overbearing faction in the nation.
While the South and the Slave Power were thus being prepared for great
wealth and political standing, circumstances were working in the North
to counteract and balance, in a way, this development. New England was
beginning to feel the first impulses of a great industrial development;
interest in commerce and manufacturing was awakening, and inventive
genius, called into action by economical necessity, was at work, and the
use of machinery and mechanical inventions was increasing. New England
was shortly to be covered with cotton and other factories.
The war between France and England opened to the United States almost a
monopoly on the West Indies trade in 1793, and it was the North that
received the greatest benefit from this trade. Congress in 1791 had
established the United States Bank at Philadelphia, with branches in all
of the important cities, and this aided the North more than the South.
In short, the North was developing that capital, energy, ingenuity and
thrift and use of mechanical inventions, the lack of which was the
greatest weakness of the South. The settlement of the Northwest
Territory by pioneers from the northern States is also to be kept in
mind.
This great manufacturing and commercial development, and the movement of
the population westward, also awakened in the North a lively interest in
internal improvements, and the steamboat, railroad and telegraph were
soon to add their tremendous influences and advantages to this section
of the country. The various pursuits and the development of the North
increased and attracted population, and the balance between the North
and the South, which was so nearly even in 1790, grew steadily in favor
of the North, until at the opening of the Civil War the North had
nineteen million free people against eight and one-quarter million in
the South, the South at that time having four million slaves.