The most stubborn defenders of slavery were, of course, the
South Carolina delegation. They were
occasionally joined by a colleague from Georgia, but South Carolina took the
lead. The issue the South Carolinians
were most insistent on was slave importation, followed by slave
representation. They were willing to
make concessions on commercial regulations to gain northern votes on slavery. South Carolina appears to have been the only Southern state willing to give ground on this issue, presumably because slavery was more important to them.
John
Rutledge: John Rutledge served on
the Committee of Detail that drew up the first draft of the Constitution and
was presumably responsible for the three provisions that favored the South. He made no attempt to morally defend the
importation of slaves, “Religion & humanity had nothing to do with this
question. Interest alone is the
governing principle with nations.” Quite
simply, he said, the Deep South would not join the Union unless their
importation of slaves was secured. To
sweeten the deal, he offered to excuse other states from protecting the South
from slave insurrections, and pointed out the increasing slave would increase
southern produce that northern ships could transport. But the Deep South would never be “such fools
as to give up so important an interest.” He was also willing to make concessions on a
navigation act. The power would not
necessarily be abused, and in any event, and at worst it would only bear a
little hard on the South. A navigation
act would be necessary to secure the West India trade. He also called for a provision against any
constitutional amendment that would disrupt the compromise protecting slave
trade until 1808.
Pierce
Butler: It was Pierce Butler who proposed requiring fugitive slaves to be extradited between states on the same
terms as criminals. He also moved to include all slaves in
representation:
[He] insisted that the labour of a slave in S. Carola was as productive & valuable as that of a freeman in Masst, that as wealth was the great meand of defence and utility to the Nation they were equally valuable to it with freemen; that the consequently representation ought to be allowed for them in a Government which was instituted principally for the protection of property, and was itself to be supported by property.
He also opposed export taxes. He also joined his other South Carolina
colleagues in supporting the sectional compromise between New England and South
Carolina; he said the interests of the “Eastern” and Southern states were as
different as Russia and Turkey, but he would agree to allow navigation acts by
a simple majority in the interest of conciliation. Butler was very clear about South Carolina’s
interests, “The security the Southn States want is that their negroes may not
be taken from them, which some gentlemen within or without doors, have a very
good mind to do.”
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney
(General Pinckney): Charles Cotesworth
Pinckney favored including all slaves in representation and was willing to
include all slaves in taxation to win the privilege. He also opposed taxing exports
and saw the two as linked:
S. Carolina has in one year exported to the amount of 600,000 pounds Sterling all of which was the fruit of the labor of her blacks. Will she be represented in proportion to this amount? She will not. Neither ought she to be subject to a tax on it.
General Pinckney
was especially clear in pointing out that Virginia’s motives in opposing slave
trade were not altogether altruistic, “As to Virginia she will gain by stopping
the importations. Her slaves will rise
in value & she has more than she wants.”
The Deep South could not do without slaves, and would not agree to the
Constitution without protection of slave importation, even if the entire
delegation agreed to it. Like Butler, he
argued that slaves would increase exports and shipping. He would agree to let slaves be taxed like
other imports, but a prohibition on slave imports would exclude South Carolina
from the Union. The
original proposed compromise would have protected slave trade until 1800;
General Pinckney moved to extend it to 1808 and Nathaniel Gorham of
Massachusetts, in accordance with the sectional compromise, seconded the motion. In
turn, he upheld South Carolina’s half of the bargain. Although he said it was in the interest of
the Southern states to have no regulations on commerce, considering New
England’s “liberal conduct” toward South Carolina and the interest of the
“weak” southern states to be united with the “strong Eastern States,” he would
agree to allowing commercial regulations by a simple majority.
Like the others, General Pinckney
was very protective of South Carolina’s interest in slaves. He was even uneasy about the Constitutional
provision that “The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges
and immunities of citizens of the several States,” wanting some provision in
favor of property in slaves.
Charles Pinckney (Mr. Pinckney): Charles Pinckney offered the only speech approaching a moral defense of slavery in the Constitutional Convention:
If slavery be wrong, it is justified by the example of all the world. He cited the case of Greece Rome & other antient States; the sanction given by France England, Holland & other modern States. In all ages one half mankind have been slaves.
Yet at the same time he said that left to herself, South Carolina would probably end slave
importations, and that he himself would support such a law, and also, quite
contradictorily, that South Carolina would never agree to the Constitution
unless it protected the importation of slaves.
As stated before, it was Charles
Pinckney, together with Wilson, who originally proposed the three-fifths
compromise. Yet once
the formula was adopted, he later moved to include all slaves in
representation, and for much the same reason as General Pinckney and Butler:
The blacks are the labourers, the peasants of the Southern States: they are as productive of pecuniary resources as those of the Northern States. They add equally to the wealth, and considering money as the sinew of war, to the strength of the nation.
Unlike the other
South Carolina delegates, Charles Pinckney did not consider himself bound by a
sectional compromise on commercial regulations.
Instead, he proposed to require a two-thirds majority on all commercial
regulations, internal or external. He
feared oppressive regulations of a simple majority, saying the power of
regulating commerce was a “pure concession” by the South, which did not need
the protection of the northern states. In this he was overruled. At the end of the Convention Charles Pinckney urged the others to sign the Constitution despite their objections, saying he
had objections of his own, including the authority of Congress to regulate
trade by a simple majority.
And now, on to the most interesting and complex topic debated at the Constitutional Convention -- how democratic should the new government be, and by what definition?
*No such provision was included. However, nearly a hundred years later, the Confederate Constitution would do just that, guarantying the citizens of the Confederacy the right to take their slaves to any state or territory without compromising their ownership.
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