The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 3 of 4 eBook

American Anti-Slavery Society
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,269 pages of information about The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 3 of 4.

The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 3 of 4 eBook

American Anti-Slavery Society
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,269 pages of information about The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 3 of 4.

Mr. Gouverneur Morris moved to insert “free” before the word “inhabitants.”  Much, he said, would depend on this point.  He never would concur in upholding domestic slavery.  It was a nefarious institution.  It was the curse of Heaven on the States where it prevailed.  Compare the free regions of the Middle States, where a rich and noble cultivation marks the prosperity and happiness of the people, with the misery and poverty which overspread the barren wastes of Virginia, Maryland, and the other States having slaves.  Travel through the whole continent, and you behold the prospect continually varying with the appearance and disappearance of slavery.  The moment you leave the Eastern States, and enter New-York, the effects of the institution become visible.  Passing through the Jerseys and entering Pennsylvania, every criterion of superior improvement witnesses the change.  Proceed southwardly, and every step you take, through the great regions of slaves, presents a desert increasing with the increasing proportion of these wretched beings.  Upon what principle is it that the slaves shall be computed in the representation?  Are they men?  Then make them citizens, and let them vote.  Are they property?  Why, then is no other property included?  The houses in this city (Philadelphia) are worth more than all the wretched slaves who cover the rice swamps of South Carolina.  The admission of slaves into the representation, when fairly explained, comes to this, that the inhabitant of Georgia and South Carolina, who goes to the coast of Africa, and, in defiance of the most sacred laws of humanity, tears away his fellow-creatures from their dearest connections, and damns them to the most cruel bondage, shall have more votes in a government instituted for protection of the rights of mankind, than the citizen of Pennsylvania or New-Jersey, who views with a laudable horror so nefarious a practice.  He would add, that domestic slavery is the most prominent feature in the aristocratic countenance of the proposed Constitution.  The vassalage of the poor has ever been the favorite offspring of aristocracy.  And what is the proposed compensation to the Northern States, for a sacrifice of every principle of right, of every impulse of humanity?  They are to bind themselves to march their militia for the defence of the Southern States, for their defence against those very slaves of whom they complain.  They must supply vessels and seamen, in case of foreign attack.  The Legislature will have indefinite power to tax them by excises, and duties on imports; both of which will fall heavier on them than on the Southern inhabitants; for the bohea tea used by a Northern freeman will pay more tax than the whole consumption of the miserable slave, which consists of nothing more than his physical subsistence and the rag that covers his nakedness.  On the other side, the Southern States are not to be restrained from importing fresh supplies of wretched Africans, at once to increase the danger of attack, and the difficulty

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The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 3 of 4 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.