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Show 228 DESPOT!Sl\I of the confederation, by which inv?It:mta~y servitud~, except for crime, was forever prolub1ted 111 t l_1c terntory north-west of the Ohio, the only_ terntory to which, a~ yet, t he conf?dcrac~ had any t._ttle. . . Yet this risinO' scntJment 111 favor of 1m partial hbcrty c ncountcrcd0a formidable ?PPo.siti?n. _'l'h.c abolition of slavery had been earned, 111dced, m .five of the states, but in only one of t hose fiv~ had 1t been 1 horou~b, sweeping, and complete. 11 o~r had provided lor the future, but had not thought 1t cxped1ent to interfere with the present. In five other states, a commencement only had been made. The m ~ss of the slave-lwldcrs in those five states clung w1th tenacity to their prey ; and the friends o~ emancipation, t houcrh their influence was apparent, did not yet venture to propose any very decisive measures. In the Carolinas and Georgia. the case was much worse. The Quakers of North Carolina had indeed commenced the ema ncipation of their slaves, but the assembly of that state put a stop to that '.'dangerous practice," as they pronounced 1t, by forbuldmg emaneJpatio, ns, except by allowa nce of the County Courts, and directin~ all slaves lutherto emanc1patcd w1thout that allowan~e to be seized and resold into slavery. Since the peace, the importation of slaves from the coast of Africa into the three southern states had been recommenced, and was vigorously carried ~n. In those states there was little thought of forcg01ng a syste.m from which great gains were hoped; thou&h the .leg1s· Iature of North Carolina, in a recent art Impos1ng a duty on future importations, expressly adm1tted the further introduction of slave:; to be of "evJl consequence, and highly impolitic." Let it be remembered, however,-and this consideraUon, though frequently overlooked or d1sre~arded, is absolutely essential to a correct .unde_rst .. ndm~ of t he case -that the Federal convention d1d not assemble to rc'vise the laws or institutions of the st~tes .i nor to determine or enforce the political or soCial r~ghls IN Ai\IBRICA. 229 appertaining to ihe inhabitants of the states, as such. That had been done already by the state constitutiOJ~ S. 'l'hc sta~es ex i st~d as bodics.po! i~ic; they had the1r laws definmg the n ghts of thcJr Citizens and inhabitants, and t heir courts for enforcing those rights· and with none of those arrangements, either by wa~ of enforcement ~r alteration, was it any part of ih~ business of t he F ederal convention to interfere, tlll· less in cases where these arrangements had or miO'ht have an inj urious bearing upon the citizens of other •tates, or upon the foreig n relations of the confederacy. The business of the F ederal convention was, so to amend the articles of confederation as to carry jnto eflect the objects at which that confederation aimed; namely, the enabling the states to act as one nation in their foreign aflairs, and securing the several states ami their individual inhabitants against injustice, oppression, or injury, on the part of other states or their individual inhabitants. It might indeed become necessary, for the accomplishment of these objects, to interfe re to some extent with some of the existing laws and institutions of the states, or at least to reserve to the authorities, to be created by the new constitution, the power of Uoing so; and under the plan adopted of submitting that constitution to be separately ratified by each of the states, any alterations so made or authorized would rest on the same basis of popular consent with the state constitutions themselves. But this interference with state constitutions or state laws, any interference in any shape with the internal a ffairs of the states, was a power to be very daintily exercised, especially in its application to particular cases, as, otherwise, any constitution which the convention might form would be sure of being rejected. 'l'hus the Federal convention had chiefly to do :vit~1 the people of America, not in their character as md1viduals about to enter into a primary political organization, but in their character as inhabitants of cerhtin states already constituted aud orga1lized. 'l'heir 20 |