gradual and peaceful emancipation. A word not in the Constitution fired the blood and exploded the shell. That word was "slavery."

What is the brief history of persons held to service or labor?

In the convention, antagonisms arose between the Northern States, which were commercial and manufacturing, and the Southern States, which were agricultural. The question arose, touching representation in the House of Representatives and taxation, Shall persons bound to service be counted? Again, Shall the trade in Africans on the western coast of Africa be continued?

Was a compromise effected?

Yes. Article I., section 3, says: ["Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other persons."] This apportionment gave the Northern States a majority of five in the first House of Representatives. The second section of the Fourteenth Amendment repealed it by

ordering a representative apportionment to include the "whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed." As there can now be no enumeration, there can be no constitutional levy of a direct tax. The Fifteenth Amendment was intended to repeal more fully the words in brackets.

What of the importation of Africans?

Virginia and the Middle States opposed further importation; New England and three Southern States united to continue it until 1808, twenty years thereafter. These Southern States wanted more sable laborers; New England ships were engaged in bringing them at a great profit.

The Southern States were threatened with taxation of exports, which would ruin them as agricultural commonwealths. Compromise: Exports would not be taxed if commerce was to be regulated by a majority vote, and the importation of Africans was guaranteed. The coveted exchange was given in these words in section 9 of Article I.: "No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any State." The other concession was made in these explicit words, also in section 9 of the same article: "The migration or importation of such persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit shall not

be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight; but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person." In Article V., relating to amendments, the foregoing concession is expressly excepted from amendment.

"Slave trade" is not used by the framers. They carefully avoided the ethnological name "negro." Had the convention at once put an end to the further importation of negroes, the clause ordering the rendition of "persons held to service or labor" would not have been adopted as a part of the compromise, and no Dred Scott and other similar excitements opened the way to disastrous war.

It is a noteworthy fact that in the beginning of the present century New England had two hundred and two vessels engaged in the slave trade, fifty-nine of which belonged to Rhode Island. One of the grandee slavers was Colonel Malbone. of Newport; Captain John Hoar of Massachusetts was also conspicuous as a successful slaver.

What would be an act of justice to the negroes?

The United States, having by constitutional authority authorized the continuance of the slave trade for twenty years, should furnish transportation to Liberia, the Congo Free State, or other

western portions of Africa, to all descendants of African slaves who may wish to go thither. Jefferson, in 1821, advocated gradual emancipation and deportation.

What did Jefferson say?

Speaking of gradual emancipation and deportation, Mr. Jefferson was prophetic. The public mind was not ripe for it; and he says, with farreaching thought: "Yet the day is not distant when it must bear and adopt it, or worse will follow. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of Fate than that these people are to be free; nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live together in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion have drawn indelible lines of distinction between them."

He insisted that slow and peaceable emancipation and deportation would lead to the filling up of the country by free white laborers.

What did Abraham Lincoln say?

In June, 1862, a delegation of negroes waited on President Lincoln at the White House. He made to them the following remarkable speech:

"Why should not the people of your race be colonized? Why should they not leave this country? This is, perhaps, the first question for con

sideration. You and we are a different race. We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other two races. Whether it is right or wrong I need not discuss; but this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both, as I think your race suffers greatly, many of them by living with us, while ours suffer from your presence. In a word, we suffer on each side.

"If this is admitted, it shows a reason why we should be separated. You, here, are freemen, I suppose. Perhaps you have long been free, or all your lives. Your race are suffering, in my opinion, the greatest wrong inflicted on any people. But even when you cease to be slaves, you are yet far removed from being placed on an equality with the white race. You are still cut off from many of the advantages which are enjoyed by the other race. The aspiration of man is to enjoy equality with the best when free; but on this broad continent not a single man of your race is made the equal of ours.

"Go where you are treated the best, and the ban

is still upon you. I do not propose to discuss

this, but to present it as a fact with which we have to deal. I cannot alter it if I would. It is a fact about which we all think and feel alike. We look to our conditions owing to the existence