Mr. Gouverneur Morris said:  “He never would concur in upholding domestic slavery.  It was a notorious institution.  It was the curse of heaven on the States where it prevailed....  The admission of slavery into the representation, when fairly explained, comes to this—­that the inhabitant of South Carolina or Georgia, 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 the protection of the rights of mankind, than the citizen of Pennsylvania or New Jersey, who views with a laudable horror so notorious a practice....  He would sooner submit himself to a tax for paying for all the negroes in the United States than saddle posterity with such a constitution.”—­Debate on Slave Representation in the Convention.  Madison Papers.]

[Footnote 25:—­An eminent jurist (Chancellor Walworth) has said that “The preamble which was prefixed to these amendments, as adopted by Congress, is important to show in what light that body considered them.” (8 Wend.  R., p. 100.) It declares that a number of the State Conventions “having at the time of their adopting the Constitution expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added,” resolved, etc.

This preamble is in substance the preamble affixed to the “Conciliatory Resolutions” of Massachusetts, which were drawn by Chief Justice Parsons, and offered in the Convention as a compromise by John Hancock. (Life Ch.  J. Parsons, p. 67.) They were afterward copied and adopted with some additions by New Hampshire.

The fifth amendment, on which the Supreme Court relies, is taken almost literally from the declaration of rights put forth by the Convention of New York, and the clause referred to forms the ninth paragraph of the declaration.  The tenth amendment, on which Senator Douglas relies, is taken from the Conciliatory Resolutions, and is the first of those resolutions somewhat modified.  Thus, these two amendments, sought to be used for slavery, originated in the two great anti-slavery States, New York and Massachusetts.]

[Footnote 26:—­The amendments were proposed by Mr. Madison in the House of Representatives, June 8, 1789.  They were adopted by the House, August 24, and some further amendments seem to have been transmitted by the Senate, September 9.  The printed journals of the Senate do not state the time of the final passage, and the message transmitting them to the State Legislatures speaks of them as adopted at the first session, begun on the fourth day of March, 1789.  The date of the introduction and passage of the act enforcing the Ordinance of ’87 will be found at note 9, ante.]

[Footnote 27:—­It is singular that while two of the “thirty-nine” were in that Congress of 1819, there was but one (besides Mr. King) of the “seventy-six.”  The one was William Smith, of South Carolina.  He was then a Senator, and, like Mr. Pinckney, occupied extreme Southern ground.]