CHAPTER Country. Negro slavery was a misfortune; he consider XII. ed it a curse; but there was no means of getting rid of 1797. it. And thereupon he proceeded to inveigh against the Quakers, whom he accused not only of unconstitutional applications to Congress, but of continually endeavoring to stir up in the Southern States insurrection among the negroes.

Against these assaults on the petitioners Livingston warmly protested. There might be individuals such as had been described; but as against the body of the Quakers these charges were false and unjust. The scruples of the Quakers on the subject of war were relied upon as a help toward blocking the administration and preventing any hostile demonstrations against France, and that circumstance may in part explain the zeal of Livingston and others in their behalf.

Parker of Virginia, and Blount of North Carolina, warmly opposed the reference of the memorial. Nicholas felt as much as other Southern gentlemen on this subject, but as he thought the holders of slaves had nothing to fear from inquiry, he was in favor of a reference. So, also, was Smith of Maryland. Finally, after a very warm debate, the reference was carried, and a special committee was appointed, of which Sitgreaves was chairman, Dana, Smith of Maryland, Nicholas, and Schureman of New Jersey, being members. This committee, after hearing the petitions, subsequently reported leave to withdraw, in which the House concurred, on the ground, as set forth in the report, that the matter complained of was exclusively of judicial cognizance, and that Congress had no authority to interfere.

Another debate involving the subject of slavery oocurred somewhat later. The president had suggested at the previous session the expediency of establishing a ter

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XIL

ritorial government over the population on the Lower CHAPTER Mississippi, hitherto under Spanish authority, but acknowledged by the recent treaty with Spain to be within 1797. the limits of the United States. There were in Natchez and its vicinity five or six thousand inhabitants, most of them of English origin, remains of the immigration just before the breaking out of the Revolutionary war, or settlers who had come in since upon Spanish invitation. Under a royal proclamation and a cession to her by South Carolina of the rights of that state under the Carolina charter, Georgia claimed the whole territory east of Louisiana, north of Florida, and south of Tennes

see.

The United States claimed, on the other hand, as the common property of the Union, all the territory south of an east and west line from the mouth of the Yazoo to the Chattahoochee; that territory having been annexed, prior to the Revolution, to the British province of West Florida; and having been ceded to the United States by the British treaty of 1783-a title lately made complete by the relinquishment, under the late Spanish treaty, of any claim to it on the part of Spain. Previous to the Spanish treaty, Georgia had offered to cede her claims to the southernmost portion of the territory on condition of being confirmed in possession of the residue; but the continental Congress had refused to accept this partial union, on the ground that Georgia ought to cede-to place her on a level with other states by which cessions had been made-all the territory west of the Chattahoochee. Such a cession of that whole wilderness, encumbered as it was by the claims of the land companies already mentioned, Georgia was now ready to make; but only on condition of being paid a large sum of money, and of an undertaking on the part of the United States to extinguish within a limited time the Indian title, ex

ΧΠ.

CHAPTER tending over two thirds or more of her reserved territo ry. To facilitate the negotiation of some such arrange1797. ment, an act was passed for the appointment of commissioners to adjust the conflicting claims of Georgia and the United States, and also to receive proposals from Georgia for the cession of her share of the South-western Territory, and at the same time to provide a government for the settlers on the Mississippi. Provision was was also made by the same act for erecting all that portion of the late British province of West Florida within the jurisdiction of the United States-that is, the terri tory between the thirty-first degree of north latitude and a due east line from the mouth of the Yazoo to the Chattahoochee-into a government to be called the MISSISSIPPI TERRITORY, to be constituted and regulated in all respects like the Territory northwest of the Ohio, with the single exception that slavery would not be prohibited.

1798.

While this section of the act was under discussion, March 23. Thacher having first stated that he intended to make a motion touching the rights of man, moved to strike out the exception as to slavery, so as to carry out the original project of Jefferson, as brought forward by him in the Continental Congress, of prohibiting slavery in all parts of the Western Territory of the United States, south as well as north of the Ohio.

Rutledge hoped that this motion would be withdrawn; not that he feared its passing, but he hoped the gentleman would not indulge himself and others in uttering philippics against a usage of most of the states merely because his and their philosophy happened to be at war with it. Surely, if his friend from Massachusetts had recollected that the most angry debate of the session had been occasioned by a motion on this very subject, he

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would not again have brought it forward. Such debates CHAPTER led to more mischiefs in certain parts of the Union than the gentleman was aware of, and he hoped, upon that 1798. consideration, the motion would be withdrawn. The allusion, doubtless, was to the advantage taken of these debates by the opposition to excite hostility against the Federal government in those Southern States in which its friends were at best but too weak.

Otis very promptly responded to Rutledge in hoping that the motion would not be withdrawn; he wanted gentlemen from his part of the country to have an opportunity to show by their votes how little they were disposed to interfere with the Southern States as to the species of property referred to.

Thacher remarked, in reply, "that he could by no means agree with his colleague (Otis). In fact, they seldom did agree, and to day they differed very widely indeed. The true interest of the Union would be pro moted by agreeing to the amendment proposed, of which the tendency was to prevent the increase of an evil acknowledged to be such by the very gentlemen themselves who held slaves. The gentleman from Virginia, (Nicholas) had frequently told the House that slavery was an evil of very great magnitude. He agreed with that gentleman that it was so. He regarded slavery in the United States as the greatest of evils-an evil in direct hostility to the principles of our government; and he believed the government had a right to take all due measures to diminish and destroy that evil, even though in doing so they might injure the property of some individuals; for he never could be brought to believe that an individual could have a right in any thing that went to the destruction of the government-a right in a wrong. Property in slaves is founded in wrong, and never can

CHAPTER be right. The government must, of necessity, put a stop XII. to this evil, and the sooner they entered upon the busi1798. ness the better. He did not like to hear much said about the rights of man, because of late there had been much quackery on that subject. But because those rights and the claim to them had been abused, it did not follow that men had no rights. Where legislators are chosen from the people and frequently renewed, and in case of laws which affect the interests of those who pass them, the rights of man are not likely to be often disre garded. But when we take upon us to legislate for men against their will, it is very proper to say something about those rights, and to remind gentlemen, at other times so eloquent upon this subject, that men, though held as slaves, are still men by nature, and entitled, therefore, to the rights of man-and hence his allusion to those rights in making the motion.

"We are about to establish a government for a new country. The government of which we form a part originated from, and is founded upon, the rights of man, and upon that ground we mean to uphold it. With what propriety, then, can a government emanate from us in which slavery is not only tolerated, but sanctioned by law? It has indeed been urged that, as this territory will be settled by emigrants from the Southern States, they must be allowed to have slaves; as much as to say that the people of the South are fit for nothing but slave-drivers-that, if left to their own labor, they would

starve!

"But if gentlemen thought that those now holding slaves within the limits of the proposed territory ought to be excepted from the operation of his amendment, he would agree to such an exception for a limited pe riod."