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shores of the Atlantic. All these States, existing and expectant, were interested to obtain commercial treaties with foreign countries; all needed the benefits of uniform commercial regulations; but they were not all equally interested in a high degree of encouragement to the growth of American shipping, by means of a stringent navigation act, that would bear heavily upon the Southern planter.

Not only was there a very considerable protection against the abuse of its power by a sectional majority, in these more minute diversities of interest, but there were also two very efficient legislative checks upon that power already introduced into the government. If an unjust and oppressive measure had commanded a majority in the House, it might be defeated in the Senate, or, if that check should fail, it might be arrested by the executive.

It had, nevertheless, been made part of the limitations upon the commercial power, embraced in the report of the committee of detail, that a navigation act should require a vote of two thirds of both branches of the legislature. The vote which adopted the prohibition against taxes on exports, taken on the 21st of August, was followed, on that day and the next, by an excited debate on the taxation of the slave-trade, in which the three States of Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina made the limitation upon the power of the Union over this traffic the condition of their accepting the Constitution. This debate was closed by the proposition of Gouverneur Morris, to refer the whole subject to a com

mittee of one from each State, in order that the three matters of exports, the slave-trade, and a navigation act might form a bargain or compromise between the Northern and the Southern States.1 But the prohibition against taxing exports had already been agreed to, and there remained to be committed only the proposed restriction against taxing or prohibiting the migration or importation of such persons as the States might see fit to admit, the restriction which required a capitation tax to conform to the census, and the proposed limitation upon the power to pass a navigation act. Thus, in effect, the questions to come before this committee were, whether the slave-trade should be excepted from both the commercial and revenue powers of the general government, and whether the commercial power should be subjected to a restriction which required a vote of two thirds in dealing with the commercial interests of the Union.

We know very little of the deliberations of this committee; but as each State was equally represented in it, and as the position of the different sectional objects is quite clear, we can have no difficulty in forming an opinion as to the motives and purposes of the settlement which resulted from their action, or in obtaining a right estimate of the result itself.

In the first place, then, we are to remember the previous concessions already made by the Northern States, and the advantages resulting from them.

1 Elliot, V. 460.

These concessions were the representation of the slaves and the exemption of exports from taxation. If the slaves had not been included in the system of representation, the Northern States could have had no political motive for acquiring the power to put an end to the slave-trade. If the exports of their staple productions had not been withdrawn from the revenue power, the Southern States could have had no very strong or special motive to draw them into the new Union; but with such an exemption, they could derive benefits from the Constitution as great as those likely to be enjoyed by their Northern confederates. Both parties, therefore, entered the final committee of compromise with a strong desire to complete the Union and to establish the new government. The Northern States wished for a full commercial power, including the slave-trade and navigation laws, to be dependent on the voices of a majority in Congress. The Southern States struggled to retain the right to import slaves, and to limit the enactment of navigation laws to a vote of two thirds. Both parties could be gratified only by conceding some portion of their respective demands.

If the Northern States could accept a future, instead of an immediate, prohibition of the slavetrade, they could gain ultimately a full commercial power over all subjects, to be exercised by a national majority. If the Southern States could confide in a national majority, so far as to clothe them with full ultimate power to regulate commerce, they could

obtain the continuance of the slave-trade for a limited period.

Such was in reality the adjustment made and recommended by the committee. They proposed. that the migration or importation of such persons as the several States then existing might think proper to admit, should not be prohibited by the national legislature before the year 1800, but that a tax or duty might be imposed on such persons, at a rate not exceeding the average of the duties laid on imports; that the clause relating to a capitation tax should remain; and that the provision requiring a navigation act to be passed by a vote of two thirds, should be stricken out.1

No change was made in this arrangement, when it came before the Convention, except to substitute the year 1808 as the period at which the restriction on the commercial power was to terminate, and to provide for a specific tax on the importation of slaves, not exceeding ten dollars on each person. The remaining features of this set

1 Elliot, V. 470, 471. 2 Two grave objections were made to this settlement respecting the importation of slaves Mr. Madison records himself as saying, in answer to the motion of General Pinckney to adopt the year 1808, that twenty years would produce all the mischief that could be apprehended from the slave-trade, and that so long a term would be more dishonorable to the American character, than to say nothing about

it in the Constitution. But the real question was, whether the power to prohibit the importation at any time could be acquired for the Constitution; and the facts show that it could have been obtained only by the arrangement proposed and carried. The votes of seven States against four, given for General Pinckney's motion, show the convictions then entertained. The other objection (urged by Roger Sherman and Mr. Madison) was,

tlement, relating to a capitation tax and a navigation act, were sanctioned by a large majority of the States.1

Thus, by timely and well-considered concessions on each side, was the slave-trade brought immediately within the revenue power of the general government, and also, at the expiration of twenty years, within its power to regulate commerce. By the same means, the commercial power, without any other restriction than that relating to the temporary toleration of the importation of slaves, was vested in

that to lay a tax upon imported slaves implied an acknowledgment that men could be articles of property. But it appears from the statements of other members, also recorded by Madison, that it was part of the compromise agreed upon in committee, that the slavetrade should be placed under the revenue power, in consideration of its not being placed at once within the commercial power. It also appears that the tax was made to apply to the "importation of such persons as the States might see fit to admit," until the year 1808, in order to include and to discourage the introduction of convicts.

But the principal object was undoubtedly the slave-trade; and this particular phraseology was employed, instead of speaking directly of the importation of slaves into the States of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, in order, on the one hand, not to give offence to

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those States, and on the other, to avoid offending those who objected to the use of the word "slaves" in the Constitution. Elliot, V. 477, 478.

1 That part of the compromise relating to the slave-trade, &c. was adopted in Convention by the votes of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, ay, 7; New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, no, 4. Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia voted for a proposition made by C. Pinckney, to postpone the report, in order to take up a clause requiring all commercial regulations to be passed by two thirds of each house. But on the rejection of this motion, the report of the compromise committee, recommending that a two-thirds vote for a navigation act be stricken out, was agreed to, nem. con.; as was also the clause relating to a capitation tax.

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