could not quite get rid of the notion that the
slaves, being human, ought to be included in the
enumeration of population, notwithstanding that
their enumeration as citizens must necessarily dis-
appear in their representation as chattels. Slaves,
as slaves, were the wealth of the South, as ships,
for example, were the wealth of the North; but,
being human, the mind was not shocked at having
the slaves reckoned as population in fixing the
basis of representation, though in reality they only
represented the masters' ownership. But nobody
would have been at a loss to see the absurdity
of counting three fifths of the Northern ships as
population. Even a Webster Whig of sixty-five
years later could, perhaps, have understood that
that was something more than an " unimportant
98 JAMES MADISON
anomaly." There was no clearer-lieaded man in
the convention than Gouverneur Morris; yet he
said that he was " compelled to declare himself
reduced to the dilemma of doing injustice to the
Southern States or to human nature, and he must
do it to the former." C. C. Pinckney of South
Carolina declared that he was " alarmed " at such
an avowal as that. Yet had the question been one
of counting three fifths of the Northern ships in
the enumeration of population, Morris would have
discovered no "dilemma," and Pinckney nothing
to be " alarmed " at. So palpable an outrage on
common sense would have been merely laughed at
by both.
In reply to Pinckney, however, Morris grew
bolder. " It was high time," he said, " to speak
out." He came there " to form a compact for the
good of America. He hoped and believed that all
would enter into such compact. If they would
not, he was ready to join with any States that
would. But as the compact was to be voluntary,
it is in vain for the Eastern States to insist on
what the Southern States will never agree to.
It is equally vain for the latter to require what
the other States can never admit, and he verily
believed the people of Pennsylvania will never
agree to a representation of negroes ; " of negroes,
he meant, counted as human beings, not for their
own representation, but, as ships might be counted,
for the increased representation of those who held
them as property. The next day he " spoke out "
y%t^^ ^^i^^cay-^Ot^^^'^^^
"THE COMPROMISES" 99
still more plainly. ''If negroes," he said, "were
to be viewed as inhabitants, . . . they ought to be
added in their entire number, and not in the pro-
portion of three fifths. If as property, the word
' wealth ' was right," — as the basis, that is, of
representation. The distinction that had been set
up by Madison and others between the Northern
and Southern States he considered as heretical and
groundless. But it was persisted in, and " he saw
that the Southern gentlemen will not be satisfied
unless they see the way open to their gaining a
majority in the public councils. . . . Either this
distinction [between the North and the South] is
fictitious or real ; if fictitious, let it be dismissed,
and let us proceed with due confidence. If it be
real, instead of attempting to blend incompatible
things, let us at once take a friendly leave of each
other."
But could they take " a friendly leave of each
other"? Should a imion be secured on the terms
the South offered? or should it be declined, as
Morris proposed, if it could not be a union of
equality ? The next day Madison again set forth
the real issue, quietly but unmistakably. "It
seemed now," he said, "to be pretty well under-
stood that the real difference of interests lay, not
between the large and small, but between the
Northern and Southern States. The institution
of slavery and its consequences formed the line of
discrimination." There is sometimes great power,
as he well knew, in firm reiteration. So long as
100 JAMES MADISON
slavery lasted, the lesson he then inculcated was
never forgotten. Thenceforward, as then, "the
line of discrimination," in Southern politics, lay
with "slavery and its consequences." One side
would abate nothing of its demands ; there could
be no " friendly leave " unless the determination,
on the other side, to overcome the desire for union
and take the consequences was equally firm.
When the question again came up, however,
Morris had not lost heart. His talk was the talk
of a modern abolitionist : —
" 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 over-
spread the barren wastes of Virginia, Maryland, and
the other States having slaves. Travel through the
whole continent, and you behold the prospect continu-
ally varying with the appearance and disappearance of
slavery. . . . Proceed southwardly, and every step you
take through the great regions of slavery 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, . . . And what is the
proposed compensation to the Northern States for a
"THE COMPROMISES" 101
sacrifice of every principle of right, of every impulse
of humanity ? They are to bind themselves to march
their militia for the defense of the Southern States, for
their defense against those very slaves of whom they
complain. They must supply vessels and seamen in
case of foreign attack. The legislature will have indefi-
nite 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 rags
that cover his nakedness. ... Let it not be said that
direct taxation is to be proportioned to representation.
It is idle to suppose that the general government can
stretch its hand directly into the pockets of the people
scattered over so vast a country. ... 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."
So much of this as was not ah^eady fact was
prophecy. Yet not many weeks later this impas-
sioned orator put his name to the Constitution,
though it had grown meanwhile into larger pro-
slavery proportions. There was undoubtedly some
sympathy with him among a few of the members ;
but the general feeling was more truly expressed a
few days later by Rutledge of South Carolina, in
the debate on the continuance of the African slave
trade. " Religion and humanity," he said, " had
nothing to do with this question. Interest alone is
the governing principle with nations. The true
102 JAMES MADISON
question at present is, whether the Southern States
shall or shall not be parties to the Union. If the
Northern States consult their interest, they will
not oppose the increase of slaves, which will in-
crease the commodities of which they will become
the carriers." The response came from Connecti-
cut, Oliver Ellsworth saying: "Let every State
import what it pleases. The morality or wisdom
of slavery are considerations belonging to the
States themselves. What enriches a part enriches
the whole," — especially Newport and its adjacent
coasts, he might have added, with its trade to the
African coast.
But a Virginian, George Mason, had another
tone. He called the traffic " infernal." " Slavery,"
he went on, " discourages arts and manufactures.
The poor despise labor when performed by slaves.
They prevent the emigration of whites, who really
enrich and strengthen a country. They produce
the most pernicious effect on manners. Every
master of slaves is born a petty tyrant. They
bring the judgment of Heaven on a country. As
nations cannot be rewarded or punished in the
next world, they must be in this. By an inevitable
chain of causes and effects. Providence punishes
national sins by national calamities."
These were warnings worth heeding. But Ells-
worth retorted with a sneer: "As he had never
owned a slave, he could not judge of the effect of
slavery on character." He said, however, that,
"if it was to be considered in a moral light, we
"THE COMPROMISES" 103
ought to go farther, and free those already in the
country." But, so far from that, he thought it
would be " unjust toward South Carolina and
Georgia," in whose " sickly rice swamps " negroes
died so fast, should there be any intermeddling to
prevent the importation of fresh Africans to labor,
and, of course, to perish there. Perhaps it was
this shrewd argument of the Connecticut delegate
that suggested, half a century afterward, to a Mis-
sissippi agricultural society, the economical calcu-
lation that it was cheaper to use up a gang of
negroes every few years, and supply its place by
a fresh gang from Virginia, than rely upon the nat-
ural increase that would follow their humane treat-
ment as men and women. His colleague, Roger
Sherman, came to Ellsworth's aid. It would be,
he thought, the duty of the general government
to prohibit the foreign trade in slaves, and, should
this be left in its power, it would probably be
done. But he would not, if the Southern States
made it the condition of consenting to the Con-
stitution that the trade should be protected, leave
it in the power of the general government to do
that which he acknowledged that it should and
probably would do.
Delegates from Georgia and the Carolinas de-
clared that to be the condition, — among them
C. C. Pinckney of South Carolina. " He should
consider," he said, "a rejection of the clause as
an exclusion of South Carolina from the Union."
Nevertheless he said to the people at home, when
104 JAMES MADISON
they came together to consider the Constitution:
" We are so weak that by ourselves we could not
form a union strong enough for the purpose of
effectually protecting each other. Without union
with the other States, South Carolina must soon
fall." On the part of that State it had been a
game of brag all along. The first lesson in the
South Carolinian policy was given in the Consti-
tutional Convention. Of the result, this v^as
Pinckney's summing up to his constituents : —
" By this settlement we have secured an unlimited im-
portation of negroes for twenty years ; nor is it declared
that the importation shall be then stopped ; it may be
continued. We have a security that the general govern-
ment can never emancipate them, for no such authority
is granted. . . . We have obtained a right to recover
our slaves, in whatever part of America they may take
refuge, which is a right we had not before. In short,
considering all circumstances, we have made the best
terms, for the security of this species of property, it was
in our power to make. We would have made better if
we could, but on the whole I do not think them bad."
A more moderate and a more significant state-
ment could hardly have been made.
On the foreign slave trade Madison had little
to say, but, like most of the Southern delegates
north of the Carolina s, he was opposed to it.
" Twenty years," he said, " will produce all the
mischief that can be apprehended from the liberty
to import slaves. So long a term will be more
dishonorable to the American character than to
"THE COMPROMISES" 105
say iiotliing about it in tlie Constitution." The
words are a little ambiguous, though he is his own
reporter. But what he meant evidently was, that
any protection of the trade would dishonor the
nation ; for at another point of the debate, on the
same day, he said that *'he thought it wrong
to admit in the Constitution the idea that there
could be property in men." Such property he
was anxious to protect as the great Southern inter-
est, so long as it lasted ; but he was not willing to
strengthen it by permitting the continuance of the
African slave trade for twenty years longer under
the sanction of the Constitution. But he held it
to be, as he wrote in " The Federalist," " a great
point gained in favor of humanity that a period of
twenty years may terminate forever within these
States a traffic which has so long and so loudly
upbraided the barbarism of modern policy." He
added, " The attempt that had been made to pervert
this clause into an objection against the Constitu-
tion, by representing it as a criminal toleration of
an illicit practice," was a misconstruction which he
did not think deserving of an answer.
It was, in fact, a bargain which he had not ap-
proved of, and did not now probably care to talk
about. It was made at the suggestion of Gouver-
neur Morris, who moved that the foreign slave
trade, a navigation act, and a duty on exports be
referred for consideration to a committee. " These
things," he said, " may form a bargain among the
Northern and Southern States." When the com-
106 JAMES MADISON
mittee reported in favor of the slave trade, C. C.
Pinckney projDosed that its limitation should be
extended from 1800 to 1808. Gorham of Massa-
chusetts seconded the motion, and it was carried
b}^ the addition of the votes of New Hampshire,
Massachusetts, and Connecticut to those of Mary-
land, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.
The committee also reported the substitution of
a majority vote for that of two thirds in legislation
relatins: to commerce. The concession was made
without much difficulty, a Georgia delegate and
three of the four South Carolina delegates favoring
it, two of the latter frankly saying they did so to
gratify New England. It was, C. C. Pinckney
said, " the true interest of the Southern States to
have no regulation of commerce ; " but he assented
to this proposition, and his constituents " would be
reconciled to this liberality," because, among other
considerations, of " the liberal conduct [of the New
England States] towards the views of South Caro-
lina." There was no question of the meaning of
this sudden avowal of friendly feeling. Jefferson
relates in his " Ana," on the authority of George
Mason, a member of the convention, that Georgia
and South Carolina had " struck up a bargain with
the three New England States, that if they would
admit slaves for twenty years, the two southernmost
States would join in changing the clause which
required two thirds of the legislature in any vote."
The settlement of these questions was an oppor-
tune moment for the introduction of that relating
"THE COMPROMISES" 107
to fugitive slaves. Butler of South Carolina im-
mediately proposed a section which should secure
their return to their masters, and it was passed
without a word. As Pinckney said in the passage
already quoted, when he went back to report to
his constituents, " it is a right to recover our slaves,
in whatever part of America they may take refuge,
which is a right we had not before."
It is notable how complete and final a settle-
ment of the slavery question " these compromises,"
as they were called, seemed to be to those who
made them. They were meant to be, as Mr. Mad-
ison called them, "adjustments of the different
interests of different parts of the country," and
being once agreed upon they were considered as
having the binding force and stability of a con-
tract. The evils of slavery were set forth as an
element in the negotiation, but no question of es-
sential morality was raised that brought the system
within the category of forbidden wrong. What-
ever results might follow would be limited, it was
thought, by the terms of the contract ; whereas, in
fact, the actual results were not foreseen, and could
not be guarded against, except by the refusal to
enter into any contract whatever.
On all other questions involving political prin-
ciples, — the just relations of the federal govern-
ment and the governments of the States ; the re-
lations between the larger and the smaller States ;
the regulation of the functions of the executive,
the legislative, and the judicial departments of
108 JAMES MADISON
government, — on all these the framers of the
Constitution brought to bear the profoundest wis-
dom. When one reflects upon the magnitude and
character of the work, Madison's conclusion seems
hardly extravagant, that " adding to these consider-
ations the natural diversity of human opinions on
all new and complicated subjects, it is impossible
to consider the degree of concord which ultimately
prevailed as less than a miracle." There were,
nevertheless, the gravest and most anxious doubts
how far the Constitution would stand the test of
time ; yet as a system of government for a nation
of freemen it remains to this day practically un-
changed. But where its architects thought them-
selves wisest they were weakest. That which they
thought they had settled forever was the one thing
which they did not settle. Of all the "adjust-
ments" of the Constitution, slavery was precisely
that one which was not adjusted.
Madison's responsibility for this result was that
of every other delegate, — no more and no less.
Neither he nor they, whether more or less opposed
to slavery, saw in it a system so subversive of the
rights of man that no just government should tol-
erate it. That was reserved for a later generation,
and even that was slow to learn. To the fathers
it was, at worst, only an unfortunate and unhappy
social condition, which it would be well to be rid
of if this could be done without too much sacrifice ;
but otherwise, to be submitted to, like any other
misfortune.
"THE COMPROMISES" 109
While it did exist, however, Madison believed
it should be protected, though not encouraged, as
a Southern interest. The question resolved itself
into one of expediency, — of union or disunion.
What disunion would be, he knew, or thought he
knewo Perhaps he was mistaken. Disunion, had
it come then, might have been the way to a true
union. " We are so weak," said C. C. Pinckney,
" that by ourselves we could not form a union
strong enough for the purpose of effectually pro-
tecting each other. Without union with the other
States, South Carolina must soon fall." But he
was careful to say this at home, not in Philadel-
phia. In the convention, Madison wrote a month
after it adjourned, *' South Carolina and Georgia
were inflexible on the point of the slaves." What
was to be the union which that inflexibility carried
was not foreseen. It was the children's teeth that
were to be set on edge.
CHAPTER IX
ADOPTION OF THE CONSTITUTION
Madison's labors for the Constitution did not
cease when the convention adjourned, although he
was not at that moment in a hopeful frame of
mind in regard to it. Within a week of the ad-
journment he wrote to Jefferson : " I hazard an
opinion that the plan, should it be adopted, will
neither effectually answer its national object, nor
prevent the local mischiefs w4iich excite disgusts
against the state governments."
But this feeling seems to have soon passed away.
Perhaps, when he devoted himself to a careful
study of what had been done, he saw, in looking at
it as a whole, how just and true it was in its fair
proportions. He now diligently sought to prove
how certainly the Constitution would answer its
purpose ; how wisely all its parts were adjusted ;
how successfully the obstacles to a perfect union
of the States had been, as he thought, overcome ;
how carefully the rights of the separate States had
been guarded, while the needed general govern-
ment would be secured. Whether there should be
an American nation or not depended, as he had
believed for years, upon whether a national Con-
ADOPTION OF THE CONSTITUTION 111
stitution could be agreed upon. Now that it was
framed he believed that upon its adoption depended
whether there should be, or should not be, a nation.
In September, as he wrote to Jefferson, he was in
doubt ; in February he wrote to Pendleton : " I
have for some time been persuaded that the ques-
tion on which the proposed Constitution must turn
is the simple one, whether the Union shall or shall
not be continued. There is, in my opinion, no
middle ground to be taken."
Those who would have called a second conven-
tion to revise the labors of the first had no sym-
pathy from him. He not only doubted if the
work could be done so well again ; he doubted if
it could be done at all. With him, it was this
Constitution or none. " Every man," he said in
" The Federalist," referring to a picture he had
just drawn of the perils of disunion, — " every man
who loves peace, every man who loves his country,
every man who loves liberty, ought to have it ever
before his eyes, that he may cherish in his heart
a due attachment to the Union of America, and be
able to set a due value on the means of preserving
it." This " means " was the Constitution.
Of the eighty papers of " The Federalist " he
wrote twenty-nine ; Hamilton writing forty-six,
and Jay only five. These famous essays, of wider
repute than any other American book, are yet
more generally accepted upon faith than upon
knowledge. But at that time, when the new Con-
stitution was in the mind and on the tongue of
112 JAMES MADISON
every tliouglitful man, they were eagerly read as
they followed each other rapidly in the columns of
a New York newspaper. They were an armory,
wherein all who entered into the controversy could
find such weapons as they could best handle. What
governments had been, what governments ought to
be, and what the political union of these American
States would be under their new Constitution,
were questions on which the writers of these papers
undertook to answer all reasonable inquiries, and
to silence all cavils. Madison would undoubtedly
have written more than his two fifths of them, had
he not been called upon early in March to return
to Virginia ; for the work was of the deepest inter-
est to him, and the popularity of the papers would
have stimulated to exertion one as indolent as he
was industrious.
But the canvass for the election of delegates to
the Constitutional Convention of Virginia called
him home. He had been nominated as the repre-
sentative of his county, and his friends had urged
him to return before the election, for there was
reason to fear that the majority was on the wrong
side. Henry, Mason, Kandolph, Lee, and others
among the most influential men of Virginia, were
opposed to the Constitution. There must be some-
body in the convention to meet strong men like
these, and Madison was urged to take the stump
and canvass for his own election. Even this he
was willing to do at this crisis, if need be, though
he said it would be at the sacrifice of every private
ADOPTION OF THE CONSTITUTION 113
inclination, and of the rule which hitherto from
the beginning of his public career he had strictly
adhered to, — never to ask, directly or indirectly,
for votes for himself.
It is quite possible, even quite probable, that
Mr. Madison had little of that gift which has
always passed for eloquence, and is, indeed, elo-
quence of a certain kind. If we may trust the
reports of his contemporaries, though he wanted
some of the graces of oratory, he was not wanting
in the power of winning and convincing. His
arguments were often, if not always, prepared
with care. If there was no play of fancy, there
was no forgetf ulness of facts. If there was lack of
imagination, there was none of historical Illustra-
tion, when the subject admitted It. If manner was
forgotten, method was not. His aim was to prove
and to hold fast ; to make the wrong clear, and to
put the right in Its place ; to appeal to reason, not
to passion, nor to prejudice ; to try his cause by
the light of clear logic, hard facts, and sound learn-
ing ; to convince his hearers of the truth, as he
believed in It, not to take their judgment captive
by surprise with harmonious modulation and grace
of movement. Not his neighbors only, but the
most zealous of the Federalists of the State, sent
him to the convention. It was there that such elo-
quence as he possessed was peculiarly needed. The
ground was to be fought over inch by inch, and
with antagonists whom It would be difficult, if not
impossible, to beat. There was to be contest over