Georgia revised her Constitution in 1798, and prohibited the importation of slaves “from Africa or any foreign place.”  Her slave-code was greatly moderated.  Any person maliciously killing or dismembering a slave was to suffer the same punishment as if the act had been committed upon a free white person, except in case of insurrection, or “unless such death should happen by accident, in giving such slave moderate correction.”  But, like Kentucky, the Georgia constitution forbade the emancipation of slaves without the consent of the individual owner; and encouraged emigrants to bring slaves into the State.

In 1799, after three failures, the Legislature of New York passed a bill for the gradual extinction of slavery.  It provided that all persons in slavery at the time of the passage of the bill should remain in bondage for life, but all their children, born after the fourth day of July next following, were to be free, but were required to remain under the direction of the owner of their parents, males until twenty-eight, and females until twenty-five.  Exportation of slaves was disallowed; and if the attempt were made, and the parties apprehended, the slaves were to be free instanter.  Persons moving into the State were not allowed to bring slaves, except they had owned them for a year previous to coming into the State.

In 1799 Kentucky revised her Constitution to meet the wants of a growing State.  An attempt was made to secure a provision providing for gradual emancipation.  It was supported by Henry Clay, who, as a young lawyer and promising orator, began on that occasion a brilliant political career that lasted for a half-century.  But not even his magic eloquence could secure the passage of the humane amendment, and in regard to the question of slavery the Constitution received no change.

As the shadows gathered about the expiring days of the eighteenth century, it was clear to be seen that slavery, as an institution, had rooted itself into the political and legal life of the American Republic.  An estate prolific of evil, fraught with danger to the new government, abhorred and rejected at first, was at length adopted with great political sagacity and deliberateness, and then guarded by the solemn forms of constitutional law and legislative enactments.

FOOTNOTES: 

[627] St. Clair Papers, vol. i. p. 120.

[628] The clause “three fifths of all other persons” refers to Negro slaves.  The Italics are our own.  The Negro is referred to as person all through the Constitution.

[629] Madison Papers, Elliot, vol. v. pp. 392, 393.

[630] Ibid., vol. v pp. 391, 392.

[631] Madison Papers, Elliot, vol. v. pp. 457-461.

[632] Madison Papers, Elliot, vol. v. pp. 477, 478.

[633] Examine Hildreth and the Secret Debates on the subject of the “compromises.”

[634] Travels, etc., vol. ii. p. 166.