The ratification of the new Constitution, beginning on November 6, 1787, and ending May 29, 1790, took place within State conventions. It was not submitted to the collective people of a nation. It was the will of the citizens of each individual State that was sought. Inherent in this process was the possibility that the citizens of a State might choose not to enter into the proposed constitutional confederacy. The proposed Union would come into being after nine states ratified the new Constitution, with or without the remaining States. (JLMC p. 77, 98).
During the ratification process of the proposed constitution, George Mason, in a letter to the Virginia Ratification Convention dated June 4, 1788, warned of the inevitable tension in the union of States of “so extensive a country, embracing so many climates, and containing inhabitants so very different in manners, habits, and customs” under a national government (JRK p. 24; PBK ch. 8, doc. 37).
The June 26, 1788, Virginia Act of Ratification of the United States Constitution contained clarifying language stating that the people of Virginia reserved the right to recall the powers they delegated to the newly formed federal government if “the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression, and that every power not granted thereby remains with them and at their will” (JRK p. 189; GLD p. 65; JLMC p. 81; CA p. 15). Clearly, recalling the powers they had delegated would cause the State to revert back to their pre-ratification status, not by permission of the other States, but by her own will.
As with Virginia, prior to ratifying the U.S. Constitution, the States of New York and Rhode Island reserved the right to recall the powers they were delegating to the new federal government by stating that “the powers of government may be reassumed by the people whenever it shall become necessary to their happiness” (GLD p. 65-66; JLMC p. 77).
Dissenting States would not ratify the Constitution without the assurance that a bill of rights to the Constitution, declaring the privileges inviolably retained by the people of the States and limiting the reach of the Federal government, would be put through in the first session of the new Congress (WEW p. 247; MLD p. 58).
The Federalist position argued against a bill of rights in the new Constitution; stating that it was “unnecessary” since sufficient restraint upon the government already exists within the body of the Constitution, being understood by the prominent phrase “WE THE PEOPLE”, and also because of inherited respect for British common-law. They also surmised that a specific list of rights would provide a rationale for the national government to violate other rights not listed. The Federalist were especially opposed to a declaration of rights which exclusively placed limits on the national government, while not similarly addressing the State governments (Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Papers, Number 84; MLD p. 58-60).
As typified in New York’s ratification document, the Antifederalist position argued that a bill of rights was a “legal weapon to keep the national government within its specified sphere of constitutional trust […] in the event of a constitutional contest between itself [a State] and the national government” (MLD p. 61). This document reads in part:
“That the sovereignty, freedom, and independency of the several states shall be retained, and every power, jurisdiction, and right which is not by this constitution expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled.”
Raphael Semmes in his 1869 work, Memoirs of Service Afloat, writes of the nervousness of the States toward the proposed new government in relation to the retained powers of the States (JRK p. 206).
Prior to ratifying the new constitution, the State of Massachusetts insisted “that it be explicitly declared, that all powers not delegated by the aforesaid Constitution are reserved to the several States, to be by them exercised.”
Pennsylvania likewise insisted that the new constitution be amended to include language guaranteeing that “[a]ll the rights of sovereignty which are not, by the said Constitution, expressly and plainly vested in the Congress, shall be deemed to remain with, and shall be exercised by the several states in the Union.”
The Ninth and Tenth Amendments to the Constitution addressed the basic Antifederalist distrust of a central government to not usurp the reserved rights of the States (MLD p. 5; JRK p. 177-78, 206).
James Madison, “the father of the Constitution,” expressed his view of the proposed new government and the sovereign status of the States as they ratified the new constitution when he stated,
“In order to ascertain the real character of the government, it may be considered in relation to the foundation on which it is to be established; to the sources from which its ordinary powers are to be drawn; to the operation of those powers; to the extent of them; and to the authority by which future changes in the government are to be introduced.
“On examining the first relation, it appears, on one hand, that the Constitution is to be founded on the assent and ratification of the people of America, given by deputies elected for the special purpose; but, on the other, that this assent and ratification is to be given by the people, not as individuals composing one entire nation, but as composing the distinct and independent States to which they respectively belong. It is to be the assent and ratification of the several States, derived from the supreme authority in each State, the authority of the people themselves. The act, therefore, establishing the Constitution, will not be a NATIONAL, but a FEDERAL act.
“That it will be a federal and not a national act, as these terms are understood by the objectors; the act of the people, as forming so many independent States, not as forming one aggregate nation […] Each State, in ratifying the Constitution, is considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its voluntary act” (James Madison, Federalist Papers, Number 39).
American slave ships flew the Stars and Stripes (not the flags of the Confederate States of America) (JRK p. 69-70).
The slave trade had early roots in New England, going back as early as 1640. The sailing ship Desire, sailing from Salem, Massachusetts, is designated as the first slave ship outfitted in America (JRK p. 66).
In 1750, Newport, Rhode Island’s fleet of slaving ships numbered one hundred and seventy (FWS p. 28).
West Indian molasses provided the basis of the New England slave trade. The molasses was used in the making of rum by New England distillers. New England based slave ships would then take on a cargo of rum to be used in trading for African slaves (JRK p. 66-67). According to the research of author Francis W. Springer:
“[A]s early as the 1750’s there were 63 distilleries in Massachusetts and 30 in Rhode Island busy converting molasses into rum for the [slave] trade. When an import duty was levied on molasses, it was never collected because it was claimed that it would ruin the slave trade, throw 5,000 men out of work and cause 700 ships to rot” (FWS p. 42; also JRK p. 67).
According to author Daniel P. Mannix in his book, Black Cargoes, the colony of Rhode Island registered a protest to the English Board of Trade in 1763 over the tax on molasses claiming it would greatly harm her slave trade, a mainstay of her economy (JRK p. 67).
The July, 1916 issue of the Hartford Current summarized the operation of the New England slave trade and its contribution to slavery in the South:
“Northern rum had much to do with the extension of slavery in the South. Many people in this state [Connecticut] as well as in Boston, made snug fortunes for themselves by sending rum to Africa to be exchanged for slaves and then selling the slaves to the planters of Southern states” (SCV p. 14).
According to the Boston News Letter, at least twenty-three thousand blacks were brought from Africa to Massachusetts between 1755 and 1766 (FWS p. 28).
The gradual reduction of slavery in the North was due in large part to the growth in the number of white laborers (JRK p. 54). According to author Lorenzo Johnson Green, in his 1966 book The Negro in Colonial New England 1620-1776, John Adams insisted that the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts was due to the protest of competing white laborers rather than for ethical or moral reasons. Adams stated,
“Argument might have some weight in the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts, but the real cause was the multiplication of labouring white people, who would no longer suffer the rich to employ these sable rivals so much to their injury. The common people would not suffer the labor, by which alone they could obtain a subsistence, to be done by slaves. If the gentlemen had been permitted by law to hold slaves, the common white people would have put the slaves to death, and their masters too perhaps” (JRK p. 84; SCV p. 13).
George H. Moore, in his 1866 book Notes on the History of Slavery in Massachusetts, documents that in 1788 Massachusetts, having instituted a process of gradual emancipation of its slaves, passed a law stating that blacks, mulattos, and Indians who came into the State and remained two months would be publicly whipped (JRK p. 76).
In 1799 New York declared that children born to slaves after July 4, 1799 were to be free. In order to recoup the loss in value of their slave holdings, New York slave owners shipped their slaves South to be sold at auction (CA p. 133).
In 1798 and 1799, the legislatures of Virginia, inspired by James Madison, and Kentucky, inspired by Thomas Jefferson, asserting their belief that they had the sovereign right to nullify any illegal or harmful acts of the Federal government, declared that both the Alien and Sedition Acts, passed by the Federalist controlled Congress, were unconstitutional and would not be enforced in their States (WEW p. 289; SEM p. 354; JRK p. 164-65; MLD p. 22).
The Virginia Resolution declared in part that “the powers of the Federal Government” are the result of a compact “to which the States are parties.” As such, the States are “duty bound to interpose for arresting the progress” of “deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers not granted by said compact” to the Federal Government (JLMC p. 106).
The Kentucky Resolution, drawn up by Jefferson, warned that allowing the Federal Government to be the judge of the extent of its own power stops “nothing short of despotism since those who administer the Government and not the Constitution would be the measure of their powers; that the several States who formed the instrument, being sovereign and independent, have the unquestionable right to judge of the infraction; and that a nullification by those sovereignties of all unauthorized acts done under color of that instrument is the rightful remedy” (JLMC p. 106-07).
It was widely proposed by New England Federalists that the New England States secede from the Union should Jefferson be elected president in the election of 1800. The Federalist newspaper, the Columbian Centinel, warned, “Tremble then in case of Jefferson’s election, all ye holders of public funds, for your ruin is at hand.” Federalist John Adams, having lost his reelection bid, was so disgusted at the outcome of the election that he refused to welcome Jefferson or attend his inauguration (WEW p. 290, 292).
In 1804, New Jersey adopted a mode of gradual emancipation of slaves that was to take effect in 1827. Slaves born before 1804 were to remain slaves for life. These remaining slaves were referred to as “colored apprentices for life.” Children of slaves born after July 4, 1804, were “free,” but had to remain as servants of their masters. Females had to labor in this way until age 21, and males until age 25. In 1850 there were 236 slaves for life in New Jersey. The 1860 United States census officially enumerated 18 slaves in New Jersey.
The method of gradual emancipation used in the North respected “property” rights of the Northern slave holders, many of whom sold their slaves South and recouped their investment–an investment that wasn’t especially profitable in the North, anyway (JRK p. 75; GKW).
New England Federalists, already enraged over the Louisiana Purchase, feared that their influence in the affairs of government would be further diminished as western and southern territories applied for admission into the Union. Josiah Quincy of Massachusetts, in a speech to the House of Representatives, spoke of Western “Representatives and Senators from the Red River and Missouri pouring themselves upon this and the other floor, managing the concerns of a seaboard fifteen hundred miles at least from their residence” (WEW p. 308, 333). During debate in Congress on Jan. 14, 1811 over the admission of Louisiana as a state, Josiah Quincy declared,
“If this bill passes, it is my deliberate opinion that it is virtually a dissolution of the Union; that it will free the States from their moral obligation; and as it will be the right of all, so it will be duty of some, definitely to prepare for a separation–amicably if they can, violently if they must” (WEW p. 331; GLD p. 28; SDC p. 28).
American ship owners and merchants, especially in New England, were very much against United States participation in the War of 1812. New England Federalists organized political and economic opposition to the United States war effort. New England merchants and privateers carried on illicit and profitable commerce with British merchant ships and conducted business with the British army in Canada in defiance of the United States embargo against trade with England (GLD p. 33; WEW p. 329-33; MLD p. 8). A few of the more outspoken members of the Federalist party even advocated a separate peace between New England and Great Britain (GLD p. 32). The governors of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, exercised their sovereign States’ rights by refusing President Madison’s call for their State militias to aid in the war effort against the British (WEW p. 327; JLMC p. 114-15).
New England newspapers boldly advocated secession during the War of 1812, arguing that “the Federal constitution is nothing more than a treaty between independent sovereignties […] and that any state had a right to withdraw” (WEW p. 333).
The January 13, 1813, edition of the Boston Centinel editorialized approvingly on secession as the imminent remedy for New England’s perceived inadequate voice in the governing of the United States by stating,
“The sentiment is hourly extending, and, in these northern states, will soon be universal, that we are in no better condition with respect to the south, than that of a conquered people […] We must be no longer deafened by senseless clamours about a separation of the states […] Should the present administration, with their adherents in the southern states, still persist in the prosecution of this wicked and ruinous war–in unconstitutionally creating new states in the mud of Louisiana (the inhabitants of which country are as ignorant of republicanism as the alligators of the swamps) and in opposition to the commercial rights and privileges of New England, much as we deprecate a separation of the union, we deem it an evil much less to be dreaded that a co-operation with them in these nefarious projects” (GLD p. 30-31).
On February, 14 1814, with the United States still at war with England, both houses of the Massachusetts State Legislature passed a resolution that read, “The question of New England’s withdrawal from the Union is not a question of power or of right to separate, but only a question of time and expediency.” On October 8, 1814, a committee of the Massachusetts legislature called for a December 15th convention of New England States in Hartford, Connecticut for the purpose of considering the secession of the Eastern States from the Union and the creation of a New England confederacy (SEM p. 383; WEW p. 331-33; SDC p. 28).
The September 10, 1814, edition of the Boston Centinel opined,
“I have, for many years, considered the Union of the Northern and Southern States as not essential to the safety, and very much opposed to the interests, of both sections. The extent of territory is too large to be harmoniously governed by the same representative body […] The commercial and non-commercial states have views and interests so different, that I conceive it to be impossible that they ever can be satisfied with the same laws […] each section will be better satisfied to govern itself: and each is large and populous enough for its own protection […]” (GLD p. 31).
The December 15, 1814, edition of the Boston Centinel argued,
“By a commercial treaty with England, which shall provide for the admission [into the New England republic] of such states as may wish to come into it, and which shall prohibit England from making a treaty with the South and West, our commerce will be secured to us, our standing in the nation raised to its proper level; and New England’s feelings will no longer be sported with or her interests violated” (GLD p. 32; GE p. 112).
The Missouri Compromise of 1820, limiting slavery to South of the 36°30′ parallel, while couched in terms of slavery, was really a political compromise over a balance of Congressional power between the industrial North and agrarian South. It was not concerned with the plight of slaves. Balance was maintained with the new free State of Maine offsetting the new slave State of Missouri. This debate served to reinforce the sectional consciousness between North and South (WEW p. 352-54).
Thomas Jefferson, now in private life, was greatly alarmed by the Missouri Compromise. He considered it ill-conceived and suicidal to the Union.
In a letter to Mark Langhorn Hill, U.S. Representative from Massachusetts, on April 5, 1820, he wrote, “I congratulate you on the sleep of the Missouri question–I wish I could say on its death; but of this I dispair! The idea of a geographical line once suggested, will brood in the minds of all those who prefer the gratification of their ungovernable passions to the peace and Union of the country!” (SDC p. 46).
On April 22, 1820, Jefferson wrote to John Holmes, U.S. Representative from Maine, that this compromise “like a fire bell in the night, awakened, and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the death knell of the union! It is hushed, indeed, for the moment, but this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence. A geographical line, coinciding with a marked principle moral and political, once conceived and held up to the angry passions of men will never be obliterated, and every irritation will make it deeper and deeper! I can say with conscious truth that there is not a man in earth who would sacrifice more than I would, to relieve us from this heavy reproach [of slavery] in any practical way. The cession of that kind of property, for so it is misnamed, is a bagatelle, which would not cost me a second thought. A general emancipation and expatriation could be effected, and gradually, and with due sacrifices, I think it might be. But, as it is, we have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him nor safely let him go! Justice is in the one scale and self preservation in the other […]” (SDC p. 46).
Thomas Jefferson saw a scheme of defeated Federalists behind the Missouri Compromise, using it as a means back into power. He asserted that they were attempting to fan the flames of passion over slavery and capitalize on the deepening North-South geographical consciousness that the Compromise fueled in order to win back the Presidency.
On September 20, 1820, he wrote to William Pinckney, Senator from Maryland: “the Missouri question is a mere party trick. The leaders of Federalism, defeated in the schemes of obtaining power, by rallying partizans [sic] to the principle of monarchism–a principle of personal, not if local division, have changed their tack […] They are taking advantage of the virtuous people, to affect a division of parties, by a geographical line. They expect that this will insure them on local principles, the majority they could never obtain on principles of federalism; but they are still putting their shoulder to the wrong wheel–they are wasting jeremiads on the evils of slavery, as if we were advocates for it” (SDC p. 46).
On December 29, 1820, Jefferson wrote to General Lafayette: “The boisterous sea of liberty, indeed, is never without a wave, and that from Missouri is now rolling toward us, but we shall ride over it as we have all others. It is not a moral question, but one merely of power. It’s object is to raise a geographical principle for the choice of a President, and the noise will be kept up till that is effected” (SDC p. 47).
On August 17, 1821 Jefferson wrote to General Henry Dearborn: “I rejoice with you that the State of Missouri is at length a member of our Union. Whether the question it excited is dead, or only sleepeth, I do not know. I see only that it has given resurrection to the Hartford Convention men. They have had the address by playing on the honest feelings of our former friends to seduce them from their kindred spirits, and to borrow their weight into the Federal scale. Desperate of regaining power under political distinctions they have adroitly wriggled into its seat again in the ascendency [sic], from which their sins have hurled them” (SDC p. 47).
The South produced nothing that benefited from protectionist tariffs, while at the same time Northern industrialists lobbied for tariffs to protect their domestic interests from foreign competition (WEW p. 513). The divisive sectionalizing effect of tariffs became clear after the passage of the Tariff Act of 1816. To the people of the South, inexpensive imported finished goods were welcome, and they resented the idea of paying higher prices in order to benefit New England manufacturing interests. Tariffs were boosted even higher in 1824 (WEW p. 364-65; BBM p. 3).
Not satisfied with the 1824 tariff rates, protectionist interests sought a further increase in tariffs. With the presidential election of 1828 approaching, political maneuvering by both protectionists and free-traders went awry resulting in tariffs being raised to unprecedented new heights under the Tariff Act of 1828. Under this “Tariff of Abominations”, as John C. Calhoun of South Carolina called it, a roar of protests arose from the agrarian South (WEW 365-68).
The famous Senate debate between Daniel Webster and Robert Y. Hayne in January of 1830 epitomized the continuing Federalist vs. Antifederalist–or nationalistic vs. States’ rights–battle of interpreting the Constitutional authority of the Federal government. Hayne, speaking first, emphasized the understanding that the citizens who gathered to create a federal government were representing the interests of the citizens of their respective States. In rebuttal, Webster minimized the fact that these founding citizen’s first concern was to the welfare of their own State and, instead, emphasized their coming together en masse. By de-emphasizing the State as a political entity, Webster attempted to minimize the relationship between a State and its citizens and sought to build up the importance of the Federal government over that of the States. While the issue was still not resolved, the nationalists inched their way forward while the States’ rights advocates seemed to lose some influence, thus placing the South even more on the defensive (WEW p. 389-92; JLMC p. 108).
With it being largely unprofitable, especially with the large influx of immigrants, slavery had long been on the decline in the North (JRK p. 79-80). This was commonly accomplished through gradual or conditional emancipation. Abolitionists, however, insisted that slavery be abolished immediately, even though it was still a more integral and vital part of the Southern economy. In January of 1831 the famous Boston abolitionist, William Lloyd Garrison, urged immediate emancipation of slaves with no compensation to the slave owners. Failing this, he advocated secession of the Northern States from the Union.
Labor union leaders sought his attention regarding the slavery-like conditions of Massachusetts cotton mill workers who worked much longer hours that did slaves, and whose meager pay kept them in living conditions worse than those of slaves. Garrison, bitterly opposed to labor unions, was not interested. In the first issue of his newspaper the Liberator Garrison lashed out against union organizers for trying to “inflame the minds of our working classes against the more opulent and to persuade them that they are contemned and oppressed by a wealthy aristocracy” (WEW p. 414-15).
In November of 1832, South Carolina exercised the belief in States’ rights by passing an Ordinance of Nullification in response to the new federal tariff law of 1832, itself a revision of the 1828 “Tariff of Abominations.” The federal tariff law of 1832 was declared “null, void and no law, not binding upon this state, its officers or citizens.” It was further stated that should the Federal government attempt to enforce the tariff act, the people of South Carolina would be absolved from their political connection to the United States. President Jackson threatened to send in troops to force South Carolina to collect the new tariff. Jackson finally proposed a compromise tariff, while South Carolina wasn’t able to muster support from other Southern States. In an 1833 retrospective statement to a friend, Jackson accused South Carolina of trying to form a Southern Confederacy (WEW p. 393-94; MLD p. 19, 31).
In 1845, John Quincy Adams and other Northern Congressmen declared that the controversial proposed annexation of Texas would be just grounds for dissolution of the Union. The Legislature of Massachusetts, along with other New England States, declared they were under no obligation to recognize the annexation. The joint Standing Committee on Federal Relations of the Massachusetts Legislature stated in part:
“When Massachusetts is asked to violate the fundamental provisions of that Constitution as well known as her own, she unhesitatingly throws herself back on her rights as an independent State. She cannot forget that she had an independent existence and a constitution before the Union was formed” (JLMC p. 129).
Of the $107.5 million in import tariffs collected on goods entering the United States during the 1830s and 1840s, $90 million or approximately 83% was collected from Southern ports of entry. In 1860, about 87% of total tariff revenue was collected in Southern ports (CA p. 27).
On January 20, 1848, Illinois Congressman Abraham Lincoln affirmed the spirit of the Declaration of Independence in a portion of a speech before Congress.
“Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right – a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this a right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit” Congressional Globe, Volume XIX, page 94 (GLD p. 67; SDC p. 87; BBM p. 296).
In light of the famous 1850 Congressional oratories of Senators John C. Calhoun, William H. Seward and others over the admission of California into the Union and the slave status of the territories of New Mexico and Utah, it became evident that the famous and unresolved Federalist versus Antifederalist debate over the nature of American federalism that began during the writing and ratification of the United States Constitution was among the core issues of the South’s War for Independence. By now, a North-South division within the Congress of the United States had taken place, a division which took place between Northern Republicans and Southern Democrats. John C. Calhoun argued for Southern self-determination, and contended that the Northern States were using the national government to aggressively move against slavery and Southern commercial prosperity through protectionist policies that favored Northern interests (MLD p. 9). The resulting Compromise of 1850, while seeking to stave off a secessionist movement by Southern States, actually agitated pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions by having the effect of nullifying the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and introducing the explosive Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 (WEW p. 455-59).
In 1852 Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, was published. Writing from abolitionist stereotypes, Mrs. Stowe had never been to the South and had no first-hand knowledge of slavery. Nonetheless, her book filled the imaginations of Northerners with evil white Southerners reveling in beating their thousand-dollar slaves (WEW p. 466).
Seen as a threat to white laborers, blacks were widely disenfranchised in Northern States, especially during the 1850s and 60s. It was not until after the War that these so-called “black codes” showed up in the South. Free blacks not only had restrictions placed on opportunities to earn a living, but also upon opportunities for education, for the privilege to vote, and even whether they could legally reside in a given State (JRK p. 55-57, 77; CA p. 130; BBM p. 170-72).
In 1851, the Indiana constitution was changed to state that “no negro or mulatto shall come into or settle in the state […]” (JRK p. 55; BBM p. 171).
1853 Illinois law prevented “the immigration of free negroes into this State.” In 1862 the citizens of Illinois amended their State constitution to say that “No Negro or mulatto shall immigrate or settle in this state […]” (JRK p. 55, 77; CA p. 130; BBM p. 171).
Oregon’s constitution, adopted on November 9, 1857, stated that “[n]o free negroe or mulatto, not residing in this state at the time of the adoption of this constitution, shall come, reside or be within this state […]” (JRK p. 55; BBM p. 172).
New Jersey and Massachusetts had also placed similar restrictions on blacks (JRK p. 55).
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