ficulty of reconciling so many conflicting interests, opinions, rival. ships, and jealousies, and agreeing upon a proper basis for the new government. Hence there was a necessity of compromise, of conciliation, of yielding theoretical rights and powers, and extreme claims on all sides, to enable the several states and parties to harmonize on medium grounds, avoiding all extremes.

The people of all the states agreed on a few great principles; that the Union should continue to be, as it had been, a federal union, and not a consolidated union; that the government should be a federal government, and not a consolidated government; that the states should retain their sovereignty and independence in all local and interior matters, and should grant the federal government power over external, foreign, international, and inter-state matters, rights, and commerce; that the government of each state derives its powers directly from the people, and should continue to be supreme over persons and property, for all the purposes of local and municipal legislation and administration; that the state governments within their spheres of action, should remain entirely inde pendent of the federal government, and not subject to its control or supervision; and that the principal of non-intervention should prevail in future, as it had previously, as between the several states, and between the federal government and the several state governments, so long as the latter should continue to act within their proper and legitimate spheres, as local and municipal governments. There were no differences of opinion, no compromises were ne cessary, on such questions.

To protect the rights of the small states, the national legislature was divided into two branches; a senate and house of representa tives; each state was allowed the same number of senators, so as to give the small states, by acting in concert in the senate, a check, and a sort of veto upon any legislative measures carried through the house of representatives by the members from the large states, which might be prejudicial to the rights and interests of the small ones. At the present time, the people of Delaware have more than thirty times as large a representation in the United States senate as an equal number of inhabitants of the state of New York. The former also cast about three times as many votes for president and vice-president of the United States, as any equal

number of inhabitants in the latter-each state having as many presidential electors, and casting as many votes, as it has members in both houses of the national legislature.

So the representation in the house of representatives was based on a compromise; and instead of allowing the southern states a full representation for slaves, or on the other hand allowing them no representation at all, a compromise was effected, and a medium between the two extremes was adopted, and they were allowed a representation for three-fifths of their slaves; so that at the present time, the slave states are entitled to the same number of members in the house of representatives, for nearly four millions of slaves, as the state of Ohio is, for 2,339,502 free inhabitants.

Any one can see that these adjustments of power between the large and the small states, and between the north and south, which constitutes the foundation of the federal union, and the cornerstones of the constitution of the United States, are not based upon inflexible political principles, but on grounds of compromise, and compromise only. They may be regarded as the FOURTH GREAT COMPROMISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, AND THE SECOND UPON THE QUESTION OF SLAVERY.

5th. The foreign slave trade, and the power to regulate it.

The next great difficulty and contest which arose in the constitutional convention, was in relation to the importation of African slaves. For more than a century prior to the revolution, slaves had been imported into and sold as merchandize, and held in bondage during life, in all the colonies. They were regarded in all the colonies as chattel property; as persons without personal rights, except the right to be protected by law from extreme eruelty. The importation of slaves into several of the states, was continued under state laws, after the close of the revolutionary

war.

The congress of the confederation having no power over commerce, either foreign or domestic, the whole subject of commerce and the importation of slaves was regulated by state laws. The committee of the constitutional convention, to whom the general subject of the powers of congress was referred, reported the following provisions, viz:

"No tax or duty shall be laid on the migration, or importation of such

persons as the several states shall think proper to admit; nor shall such migration or importation be prohibited."

The above clause merely proposed to leave in full force the then existing powers of the several states, to continue the importation of slaves as they had done. If it had been adopted, it would have conferred on the states no new powers; but would have perpetuated the slave-trade forever. The delegates from Maryland, Virginia, and all the northern states, were opposed to the slave-trade, and opposed to the above provision to authorize its continuance, and Mr. L. Martin, of Maryland, moved to strike it out. The delegates from South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia opposed the motion, and thereupon a warm and violent debate ensued upon the question. Several of the delegates declared that if the slave trade was prohibited, those three extreme southern states would not come into the Union; and there is no reason to doubt that such would have been the result, if no compromise had been affected, and the slave trade had been immediately prohibited The hesitation of North Carolina to ratify the constitution and to come into the new union, even with the compromise, furnishes sufficient evidence of the feelings of the people, to show that without the adjustment of the question, as finally agreed upon, that that state, together with South Carolina and Georgia, would have refused to ratify the constitution, and would have formed another and distinct confederacy.

After a warm and long debate, the provision was referred back to the committee for revision, in the hope of an agreement of the differences of opinion by compromise. The committee afterwards reported the following provision, viz:

"The migration or importation of such persons as the several states, now existing, shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the legisla ture prior to the year 1800; but a tax or duty may be imposed on such migration or importation, at a rate not exceeding the average of duties laid on Imports."

On the report being taken up, Gen. Pinkney, of South Carolina, moved to strike out the figures "1800," and insert 1808 in their place, so as to sanction the continuance of the foreign slave-trade until the year 1808, and authorize congress to prohibit it thereafter. Mr. Gorham, of Massachusetts, seconded the motion, and after warm debate it finally prevailed; the following states voting for it,

viz: New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, seven in all; New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Virginia voted against it; New York was divided, and her vote lost, and Rhode Island was not represented in the convention. With that amendment and some other changes in phraseology, the provision was adopted as it now stands in the 9th section of the first article of the constitution. [See ante. p. 48.]

By the adjustment of the question, the convention had the wisdom to adopt the mean between two extremes-avoiding both. It was impossible to harmonize the north and the south, and to unite all the states in one strong, national government, under such an organic law as the present constitution of the United States, without some such compromise of the question in reletion to the importation of slaves. As North and South Carolina and Georgia desired to retain, perpetually, the assumed right and power to import slaves, and the other ten states desired to prohibit their importation immediately and forever, and as the former three states were substantially independent, and could not be compelled to ratify the constitution, nor to come into the new Union without their consent, it was impossible to form a union of all the states under the constitution, without a satisfactory arrangement of that most difficult question. The adoption of that provision by the convention, may, therefore, be very properly regarded as the fifth great compromise of the American people, without which the union of all the states, under the constitution, could never have been formed.

6th. The surrender of fugitive slaves.

When the clause of the constitution regarding fugitives was under consideration in the convention, Mr. Butler, and Mr. Charles Pinckney, of South Carolina, "moved to require fugitive slaves and servants to be delivered up like criminals." The form of expression was objected to, but the power itself, though not inserted in the draft of the constitution made and reported by the committee on details, was generally assented to by northern as well as southern delegates, and the clause, on consultation, was finally modified and adopted, in the form it appears in section 2, of article IV., of the constitution. [See ante. p. 54.]

The people of the southern states had a very deep interest in the adoption of that provision of the constitution; while those of the northern states had very little, and the feelings of a majority of the people of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Connecticut, were repugnant to it, so far as it applied to negro slaves. But as it was made to apply to indented white servants and apprentices as well as to slaves, the propriety of the provision was so obvious, that it was assented to by all, even by the delegates from Massachusetts, and was finally adopted without a division.

Though it was not opposed by the delegates from the northern states, and not adopted after a violent contest as a compromise measure, as the other provisions were, yet it was adopted to render slave property more secure, and to conciliate the south, and to render the constitution more acceptable to that portion of the Union; and there is no reason to doubt that it contributed largely to commend the constitution to the favorable consideration of the people of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, and to promote its adoption by those states. It may, therefore, be regarded as the sixth compromise of the American people—the propriety of which was more generally assented to than any of the others.

7th. The Missouri Compromise.

The adoption of the provision to prohibit slavery in the remaining territories, north and west of the state of Missouri, embodied in the act to admit that state into the Union, in 1820, generally known as the Missouri compromise, was the seventh great compromise of the American people, and the fourth upon the subject of slavery. It saved the Union from dissolution at that time. [See ante. pages 145 and 146.]

Sth. The compromise triff of 1833.

The sophism of free trade sunk deep into the minds of the politicians and people of the state of South Carolina, and rendered the laws of the United States for raising a revenue by levying duties on goods and merchandize imported into the country, very odious, among all classes in that state. About the year 1830, the subtle and fruitful intellect of John C. Calhoun, then vice president of the United States, conceived the sophistical doctrines of