The Great Conspiracy | Page 9

the
unanimous vote of all the eight States present. And the sixth article of
this Ordinance, or "Articles of Compact," which it was stipulated
should "forever remain unalterable, unless by common consent," was in
these words:
"Art. 6. There shall be neither Slavery nor involuntary servitude in the
said Territory, otherwise than in punishment of crimes, whereof the
party shall have been duly convicted; provided always that any person
escaping into the same from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed
in any one of the original States, such fugitive may be lawfully
reclaimed, and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor, or
service, as aforesaid."
But this Ordinance of '87, adopted almost simultaneously with the
framing of our present Federal Constitution, was essentially different

from the Ordinance of three years previous, in this: that while the latter
included the territory south of the Ohio River as well as that north-west
of it, this did not; and as a direct consequence of this failure to include
in it the territory south of that river, the States of Tennessee, Alabama
and Mississippi, which were taken out of it, were subsequently
admitted to the Union as Slave States, and thus greatly augmented their
political power. And at a later period it was this increased political
power that secured the admission of still other Slave States--as Florida,
Louisiana and Texas--which enabled the Slave States to hold the
balance of such power as against the original States that had become
Free, and the new Free States of the North-west.
Hence, while in a measure quieting the great question of Slavery for the
time being, the Ordinance of '87 in reality laid the ground-work for the
long series of irritations and agitations touching its restrictions and
extension, which eventually culminated in the clash of arms that shook
the Union from its centre to its circumference. Meanwhile, as we have
seen--while the Ordinance of 1787 was being enacted in the last
Congress of the old Confederation at New York--the Convention to
frame the present Constitution was sitting at Philadelphia under the
Presidency of George Washington himself. The old Confederation had
proved itself to be "a rope of sand." A new and stronger form of
government had become a necessity for National existence.
To create it out of the discordant elements whose harmony was
essential to success, was an herculean task, requiring the utmost
forbearance, unselfishness, and wisdom. And of all the great questions,
dividing the framers of that Constitution, perhaps none of them
required a higher degree of self abnegation and patriotism than those
touching human Slavery.
The situation was one of extreme delicacy. The necessity for a closer
and stronger Union of all the States was apparently absolute, yet this
very necessity seemed to place a whip in the hands of a few States, with
which to coerce the greater number of States to do their bidding. It
seemed that the majority must yield to a small minority on even vital
questions, or lose everything.

Thus it was, that instead of an immediate interdiction of the African
Slave Trade, Congress was empowered to prohibit it after the lapse of
twenty years; that instead of the basis of Congressional Representation
being the total population of each State, and that of direct taxation the
total property of each State, a middle ground was conceded, which
regarded the Slaves as both persons and property, and the basis both of
Representation and of Direct Taxation was fixed as being the total Free
population "plus three-fifths of all other persons" in each State; and that
there was inserted in the Constitution a similar clause to that which we
have seen was almost simultaneously incorporated in the Ordinance of
'87, touching the reclamation and return to their owners of Fugitive
Slaves from the Free States into which they may have escaped.
The fact of the matter is, that the Convention that framed our
Constitution lacked the courage of its convictions, and was "bulldozed"
by the few extreme Southern Slave-holding States--South Carolina and
Georgia especially. It actually paltered with those convictions and with
the truth itself. Its convictions--those at least of a great majority of its
delegates--were against not only the spread, but the very existence of
Slavery; yet we have seen what they unwillingly agreed to in spite of
those convictions; and they were guilty moreover of the subterfuge of
using the terms "persons" and "service or labor" when they really
meant "Slaves" and "Slavery." "They did this latter," Mr. Madison says,
"because they did not choose to admit the right of property in man,"
and yet in fixing the basis of Direct Taxation as well as Congressional
Representation at the total Free population of each State with
"three-fifths of all other persons," they did admit the right of property
in