252 



CONGKESS, U. S, 



cause he was an apprentice by contract, not be- 

 cause he was an indented servant by contract, 

 but because by the law of the State that contract 

 was one from which he could not escape, be- 

 cause by the law of the State he was bound, 

 having entered into the contract, to render the 

 service for which the contract stipulated. But 

 if the law of the State gave to one man a right 

 to the service of another, and that law is legal 

 (which is not involved in this question), if 

 slavery as it exists in the States is legal, then he 

 who owes service in a slave State to a citizen 

 of the slave State owes service to such citizen 

 ' under the laws thereof.' " 



Mr. Sumner: "A slave cannot owe service, 

 the Senator will bear in mind." 



Mr. Johnson: "I cannot bear that in mind. 

 I cannot get it into the mind." 



Mr. Sumner : " It is very essential in discuss- 

 ing this question." 



Mr. Johnson : " I know it is absolutely es- 

 sential to come to your conclusion ; but it is a 

 conclusion I think that no other gentleman can 

 well come to, because no other gentleman can 

 well get that into his mind. But I was about 

 to say that the clause referred to by the mem- 

 ber from Kentucky is pregnant with meaning 

 on the question : 



Representatives and direct taxes shall be appor- 

 tioned among the several States which may be in- 

 cluded within this Union, according to their respec- 

 tive numbers, which shall be determined by adding 

 to the whole number of free persons, including those 

 bound to service for a term of years. 



" Now, one of your classes is provided for. 

 Your apprentices and your indented servants 

 are ' bound ' only ' for a term of years.' They 

 are to be added. Who are to be excluded ? 

 'Indians not taxed' are to be excluded. Who 

 else is to be added ? ' Three-fifths of all other 

 persons.' What is the meaning of these 

 words ? 



" Now, who are the ' persons,' three-fifths of 

 whom are to be added for the purpose of deter- 

 mining the question of representation and the 

 other question of taxation? If you take the 

 apprentices out. and the indented servants out, 

 and the Indians out, are there any other per- 

 sons than slaves ? The honorable member is 

 not to be told, Mr. President, that one of the 

 political objections to slavery whicli the North 

 has urged, and which was quite a sound one if 

 they were about to make a constitution for 

 themselves, was that three-fifths of the slaves 

 were added for the purpose of increasing the 

 representation of the South, when the North 

 was denied the right to increase its own repre- 

 sentation by having added in any way for that 

 purpose any portion of its property, whatever 

 tl.nt might be. The objection was a political 

 one. It was that this clause gave to the South 

 greater weight in the councils of the country 

 than their white free population entitled them 

 to ; and the objection was, not that apprentices 

 were added, for they were white, not that in- 

 dented servants were added, for they were 



white, but that what tho South considered '*& 

 property, slaves, were added. In all the de- 

 bates upon that subject, that has been a fruit- 

 ful topic of complaint, and the North no doubt 

 in a few years after the Constitution was adopt- 

 ed, and particularly after the southern States 

 began to multiply and this slave population 

 began to multiply, would have changed the 

 Constitution if they could in that particular. 

 When the Constitution was adopted, it was a 

 matter comparatively unimportant ; but when 

 you added southern State after southern State, 

 and brought in slaves by the thousand, the dis- 

 proportion between the white population and 

 the slave population became so great that in 

 point of fact you made an aristocracy of the 

 South, and they ruled the North, not by their 

 own numbers, but because they were masters 

 of the slaves. 



"But what was the object of the ninth sec- 

 tion of the first article ? That is a provision 

 which was taken out of the amendatory clause, 

 and that ninth section says : 



The migration or importation of such persons as 

 any of the States now existing shall think proper to 

 admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior 

 to the year 1808. 



" What is the meaning of ' persons ' there ? 

 Were there any white apprentice boys in Afri- 

 ca ? Were there any laws of apprenticeship in 

 Africa? Did any there by contract owe service 

 to any master in Africa ? Did any there by 

 contract agree to owe service to any man who 

 would come there and take them away ? We 

 know it was not so. That ruthless and bar- 

 barous traffic, the disgrace of civilization, the 

 dishonor of England more than of ourselves, 

 was a trade of violence. They were snatched 

 from their country by force or by fraud, sub- 

 jected to all the dangers of the passage hence, 

 dying by thousands and hundreds of thousands, 

 after suffering excruciating tortures that make 

 the blood run cold even when we read of them 

 at this distant day; they were brought here 

 and made slaves, and we said that they might 

 'continue to be brought for a time, as included 

 under the term ' persons ; ' and the honorable 

 member, therefore, unless he is able to read 

 that word 'persons' in the ninth section as 

 comprehending only apprentices, cannot read 

 the same word to be found in the fugitive slave 

 clause as meaning only apprentices. 



" The Senate is not to be told, Mr. President, 

 that I share as earnestly as the honorable mem- 

 ber from Massachusetts can in a desire to see 

 the institution terminated. The difference be- 

 tween us is, as I think, that he takes a different 

 view of constitutional obligation. It is, as I 

 think, that the Constitution recognizes the in- 

 stitution in plain terms, that it was the purpose 

 of our fathers to make such a recognition, that 

 they acted in pursuance of that purpose during 

 the whole period of their own lives upon earth, 

 that every act of legislation passed by them 

 during the time that they were guiding the 

 councils of the country recognized the institu- 



