patriarchal government of the south of the slaveholder's tender care of his slaves, and the bond of intimacy in which they live, some persons would be apt to think that the slave is the happiest man in the world—that he has no fear of what is to come-no dismal anticipations as to the future. He has merely to pick corn meal in summer and winter. He is only lia. ble to be separated from his wife and children, and sold again and again, and sent to different parts of the Union. This is all seen in the beautiful sketch of the patriarchal south. And, yet, some gentlemen imagine that the negroes of Pennsylvania would be better off, if in their former condition of bondage, and be more industrious and more happy.

I will briefly recapitulate the position I take. I contend, that by the constitution of 1790, that a man born of a free woman in Pennsylvaniawhether black or white, is a citizen. I contend that that is perfectly clear. I contend further, and adduce this as an additional proof of the fact, that in the militia law, the word "white," is inserted, not citizen, or freeman. And, did not the legislature know what they were saying? Is it not a demonstration that where the word was omitted, it was in dispute? Besides, it will be found, on examining the naturalization law, that the word is also omitted in it. Does it not show that it was in dispute? Unless we unsettle all the rules of construction, we must come to the conclusion that before the revolution, there were freemen in the country. At the revolution there was a black regiment, under the command of the brave Colonel Green, which rendered essential service in achieving the liberties of the country, And, continental congress declared that the men who should serve in the ariny to the end of the war should be free. Let gentlemen bear in mind that there are black "citizens" of the United States, on board the American ships. The blacks are so regarded by the national government; and they are demanded as such from foreign governments, when impressed into their service. We are afraid of the south are we that they will not recognize negroes as citizens. When have they said it? A black man votes in New York, under a property qualifieation. He is a citizen of New York. He was a citizen, too, from 1777, till 1821.

Suppose a black citizen to go to the south, and he is kidnapped and sold for a slave, upon the ground that New York would not qualify her citi. zens in a manner so as to suit the policy, and accord with the laws of the southern states-would it not be a gross violation of her rights? But such a case is not to be contemplated. No man could fairly attribute such conduct to the south. She is not so unjust-so faithless to the Union. We are too often cowering to what is called southern dictation and domination, and which they never have sought, perhaps, and to bow, with submission to southern pretension-all which is an argument that the southrons themselves would scout and repudiate. It is going too far. I do not impute it to any one here. But, there is too much disposition in some gentlemen to regard what is thought elsewhere, and we should be exceedingly cautious.

I shall vote against the insertion of the word "white" in the constitution of Pennsylvania. I came not here to take any man's right away-not to make any man less happy than he was before the constitution was amended. And, I know that if the amendment should be adopted great mischief will be done. Now, the coloured man's hopes are high; but they

will be broken when you tell him that he is to be deprived of the right of suffrage. His brow will fall, and his spirits will be depressed. He will at once see that his means of happiness have been abridged. You will inflict no such wrong on him. Others may, but I will not.

Mr. HOPKINSON said, that after the glowing and animated appeal made to human sympathies-he might say, to our best sympathies, by the gentleman (Mr. Forward) who had just taken his seat, he (Mr. H.) could hardly hope that the convention would willingly listen to a few cool words on the subject-such, however, it was his intention and desire to address to them. They may, perhaps, have the effect of cooling or abating the flame raised by the ardent language they had heard.

That in his opinion this was a question that should be quietly considered -rationally discussed and deliberately decided. It should be finally voted upon and settled according to its real merits, by the dictates of a very serious duty, and not by exciting the passions either of ourselves who speak upon it, or of those who hear us. A bad cause sometimes obtains support from good feelings; the heart yields to impressions which the judgment resists. We must guard against this delusion. We come here to exercise our judgment and not to indulge our feelings; we must be able to defend hereafter, by arguments of reason and sound policy, what we do, and we shall neither satisfy ourselves or those who sent us here, by inflammatory addresses or sympathetic decisions.

It must be borne in mind, said Mr. H., that a part of what we have heard, has not been applied to the question to be decided, but to the arguments which had been used by gentlemen who had spoken in favor of the introduction of this obnoxious word "white" into the constitution.

He (Mr. H.) would give his attention to the subject matter of the debate -and would not consider it to be incumbent upon him, to support or assail the arguments by which other gentlemen, thinking with him in the result -have thought proper to maintain their opinions. If in their endeavors to defend the cause he supported, they had surrendered it, as is asserted, it was for them to justify themselves and their arguments; he had to do only with the right and wrong of the principles he advocated; and if his opponents had obtained a triumph over some of the arguments brought to the support of his cause, it must not be considered as a triumph over the

cause.

This distinction must not be overlooked by those whose votes are finally to decide the question-as in courts of justice, a judge must look to the cause rather than to the advocate; to the true merits of a question, rather than to the argument of the advocates on the one side or the other.

He would freely admit that satisfactory answers had been given to much that had been advanced by gentlemen who think as he does on the main question, but the matters that had been so answered had never met his approbation; he did not assent to them.

Mr. H. said, that in his view of the case, the convention had nothing to decide but a mere question of political policy-as applied to the state of Pennsylvania. With regard to the general question of slavery-with regard to the question of slavery in the south, or elsewhere; its history, its tendency, its justifications or condemnations-a field of controversy that has no limits, he had nothing to do, nor was this convention called upon to

express any opinion-nor should he inquire-or make it any part of his argument, whether the blacks were or were not, a degraded race-whether they were superior or inferior to the white man, in their capacity, their genius or their virtues. He was, for the purposes of his argument, willing to admit that in all these things the negro is superior to the white

man.

He said that the members of this convention are assembled to make and establish the fundamental laws of this commonwealth, for ourselves and our posterity; this should be done on great and permanent principles of reason- -wisdom and policy, and it is by those principles, as applied to the actual condition of the whole community-of the white as well as the black population; of the relations in which they stand to each other, that we should decide whether the negroes shall or shall not have the right of suffrage in common with ourselves. This is the question and the only question we have to determine, and every inquiry or argument foreign to that question is beside our object.

What have we to do with the law or policy of England on this subject? They have no application to a people in our condition. We have here a coloured population of fifty or sixty thousand, rapidly increasing. We have in our neighborhood, sister states overflowing with this population, who may pour them in upon us in countless numbers, and who are now doing so to an alarming extent, without the encouragement now proposed to be given to them.

He reminded the convention that his argument had been and now is, that in the actual relations now subsisting between the white and black population of this commonwealth-which is not likely to be changed-for nobody here-even the most zealous advocates for equality-has proposed or anticipated, or desired any such change-it will be unwise, it will be dangerous to us and to them, to admit them to political rights on an equality with ourselves and what is the difficulty? what the objection? It is here-that while you exclude them, as you actually do, and as you mean to continue to do, from any approach to a social equality, you cannot wisely or safely confer upon them political equality and rights. Has any attempt been made to meet this view of the case? to answer this argument? had heard none.

He

Have the gentlemen who have made such stirring appeals in behalf of the blacks, who have claimed for them all the virtues and all the talents that man is capable of-have they denied, that this feeling, whether natural or acquired this prejudice, if you will call it so-is so strongly rooted in our white population-nay, in their own hearts and bosoms-that there is no expectation-no hope, I may say no desire, that has been expressed here to remove it.

Has any gentleman on this floor, the boldest and the warmest advocate for negro equality and suffrage, gone so far as to say-to insinuate that he is willing to extend to the blacks his social equality and rights; to receive him in his family or at his table, on the same footing and terms with his white friends and acquaintances; allow them to marry with his children, male and female?-not a word of the kind. They will give them the rights of the people-of the commonwealth-but not of their own houses and homes.

Mr. H. said, he wished to be distinctly understood, that he wished to say nothing reproachful or derogatory to the black man; he did not think it necessary to say, whether this aversion to his society was just-was natural, or was the effect of habit, accident or education. He spoke of it only as it was. His argument had no reference to the colour of this

race.

If it were possible that 50,000 white men could be placed in relation to the rest of the population of the state, consisting of a million and a half of people as these negroes are-he would exclude them also from the right of suffrage, in the same manner-for the same reasons that he would now exclude the blacks. Remove the social barrier that separates them from us, and he would at once consent to remove the political; but to take away the latter and leave the former in full force, would be to bring an irritated and bitter enemy into the body politic, who could never be reconciled by a vote for the insult to his feelings and pride, in his exclusion from your society.

How then would his political power be used? Certainly to extend its influence; certainly, to avenge the affront which meets him at the front door of every house where he might present himself. If he votes he will expect and demand to be voted for; he will claim the right, and who can gainsay it, to a competition for every office in the commonwealth, executive, legislative and judicial; and although their own strength amounting to twelve or fifteen thousand votes, may not of itself be able to obtain such places for them, yet, in the conflict of parties so equally balanced as they sometimes are, and the reckless eagerness often displayed for victory, their votes may be more than sufficient to turn the scale, and they may be obtained by compromises and bargains with them, that will bring into your halls of legislation-upon your judicial benches and into every place and appointment in the commonwealth, men whom you will not receive at your tables or in your houses as friends or acquaintances. Will not this be a strange state of things? What must it lead to? Can it possibly exist without very serious consequences to both parties? Let as pause on the threshhold; let us be satisfied to let this subject rest as it has heretofore rested without any general dissatisfaction; without any dissatisfaction loud or extensive enough to have created any uneasiness, to have been heard as far as I know.

Mr. H. reminded the convention that at the outset of the debate, he had expressed the opinion advanced by the gentleman from Allegheny, (Mr. Forward) that by the true construction of the present constitution of Pennsylvania, the coloured man has a right to vote; although he could not go with his friend so far as to join in his challenge to name any man who pretends to be a lawyer to deny it-on the contrary, he knew that able judges had differed on this question-and an elaborate opinion had been given from a judicial bench, which denied this right under the constitution. But what is gained in the present argument, by proving the existence of the right under the present constitution? He could see nothing, because it is for the purpose of revising that constitution, that we are now assembled; and if this convention, admitting the present existence of the right, shall believe that the great interests of the commonwealth, the general welfare of the whole, require that this right should be taken away, what is there to prevent our doing it? Mr. H. would submit his view of this constitutional question in a few distinct propositions.

1. He thought that under the plain words of the constitution—" every freeman of the age of twenty-one years" &c. shall enjoy the rights of an elector;" a free negro being unquestionably a freeman, unless it is denied that he is a man, has a right to vote. That there is no obscurity or ambiguity in the meaning of these words, and that this meaning cannot be rejected or changed by a construction, derived by a course of argument and conjecture, from the history of slavery in Pennsylvania, and a reference to the rights and condition of the black population in the early periods of the province. Such however, were the means resorted to to get rid of, or overlay the plain language of the constitution.

The constitution of 1790, was made with as full and accurate knowledge as we now have, of all this history and these circumstances, and if -which I can neither affirm or deny-the constitution by a clear interpretation of its language, worked any change in the condition and rights of these people, we must presume that it was so intended, and we cannot throw them back to their former condition and rights, by a forced and argumentative construction, not drawn from the language of the constitution, but from extraneous circumstances and ingenious suppositions. He would not undertake to say, as his opponents had done, what was the intention of the framers of the constitution on negro suffrage, further than as he found it in what they had said and done. It may be, that this portion of our population was not immediately in their view, when they were regulating the elective franchise. At that time this right had never been claimed or exercised by that population, and it had by no means the importance which it has since assumed, from the increase of the numbers and power of this class of people. But this is all surmise and conjecture; it may be true, it may not be so, and we must now take the instru ment as they have given it to us, as the true expositor of their intention, and not force a construction upon their language, which is not warranted -or rather which is repudiated, by its plain and fair interpretation; and especially, when to do this we go out of the instrument, and seek for the intention in remote history and extraneous circumstances. We have had abundant reason to know that the language of this constitution was as carefully considered as its principles; and I doubt our ability to improve either. Some gentlemen have suggested, that it will be better for us to pass by this subject, aud leave it as it now stands under the constitution of 1790. Perhaps this course might have been eligible if the question had remained at rest; but it has been agitated here and elsewhere; we cannot suppress or avoid it; it has been brought upon us by petitions and memorials, and presented to us by a direct motion on which there must be a direct vote. In this situation we must meet the question fearlessly, and decide it honestly. There is another reason why we should put this question to rest, so far as we have power to do so. Since the determination of the people to have this convention, the question of negro suffrage has been publicly agitated. Previously, it had drawn but little attention; it was scarcely spoken of. But few of these people claimed the right, and there was no excitement or difficulty felt or apprehended about it. It has since that period assumed a different character and aspect. Attempts have been made in some counties to bring these people to the polls, and unpleasant excitements have attended them; different opinions prevail and are in conflict, and serious difficulties