place; and I think there is great reason to believe, that, if the importation of slaves is permitted until the year eighteen hundred and eight, it will not be prohibited afterwards. At this time we do not generally hold this commerce in so great abhorrence as we have done. When our liberties were at stake, we warmly felt for the common rights of men. The danger being thought to be past, which threatened ourselves," we are daily growing more insensible to those rights. In those States which have restrained or prohibited the importation of slaves, it is only done by legislative acts, which may be repealed. When those States find that they must, in their national character and connection, suffer in the disgrace, and share in the inconveniences, attendant upon that detestable and iniquitous traffic, they may be desirous also to share in the benefits arising from it; and the odium attending it will be greatly effaced by the sanction which is given to it in the General Government.

By the next paragraph, the General Government is to have a power of suspending the habeas corpus act in cases of rebellion or invasion.

As the State governments have a power of suspending the habeas corpus act in those cases, it was said, there could be no reason for giving such a power to the General Government; since, whenever the State which is invaded, or in which an insurrection takes place, finds its safety requires it, it will make use of that power. And it was urged, that if we gave this power to the General Government, it would be an engine of oppression in its hands; since whenever a State should oppose its views, however arbitrary and unconstitutional, and refuse submission to them, the General Government may declare it to be an act of rebellion, and, suspending the habeas corpus act, may seize upon the persons of those advocates of freedom who have had virtue and resolution enough to excite the opposition, and may imprison them during its pleasure in the remotest part of the Union; so that a citizen of Georgia might be bastiled in the farthest part of

New Hampshire; or a citizen of New Hampshire in the farthest extreme of the South, cut off from their family, their friends, and their every connection. These considerations induced me, sir, to give my negative also to this clause.

Extracts from Debates in the several State Conventions on the Adoption of the United States Constitution.

MASSACHUSETTS CONVENTION.

The third paragraph of the 2d section having been read, Mr. KING rose to explain it. There has, says he, been much misconception of this section. It is a principle of this Constitution, that representation and taxation should go hand in hand. This paragraph states, that the number of free persons shall be determined, by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other persons. These persons are the slaves. By this rule are representation and taxation to be apportioned. And it was adopted, because it was the language of all America.

Mr. WIDGERY asked, whether a boy of six years of age was to be considered as a free person.

Mr. KING in answer said, all persons born free were to be considered as freemen; and to make the idea of taxation by numbers more intelligible, said that five hegro children of South Carolina are to pay as much tax as the three Governors of New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Mr. GORHAM thought the proposed section much in favor of Massachusetts; and if it operated against any State, it was Pennsylvania, because they have more white persons bound than any other.

Judge DANA, in reply to the remark of some gentleman, that the Southern States were favored in this mode of apportionment, by having five of their negroes set against three persons in the Eastern, observed, that the negroes of the Southern States work no longer than when the eye of the driver is on them. Can, asked he, that land flourish like this, which is cultivated by the hands of freemen? Are not three of these independent freemen of more real advantage to a State, than five of those poor slaves?

Mr. NASON remarked on the statement of the honorable Mr. KING, by saying that the honorable gentleman should have gone further, and shown us the other side of the question. It is a good rule that works both ways-and the gentleman should also have told us, that three of our infants in the cradle are to be rated as high as five of the working negroes of Virginia. Mr. N. adverted to a statement of Mr. KING, who had said, that five negro children of South Carolina were equally ratable as three Governors of New England, and wished, he said, the honorable gentleman had considered this question upon the other side -as it would then appear that this State will pay as great a tax for three children in the cradle, as any of the Southern States will for five hearty, working negro men. He hoped, he said, while we were making a new government, we should make it better than the old one; for if we had made a bad bargain before, as had been hinted, it was a reason why we should make a better one now.

Mr. DAWES said, he was sorry to hear so many objections raised against the paragraph under consideration. He thought them wholly unfounded; that the black inhabitants of the Southern States must be considered either as slaves, and as so much property, or in the character of so many freemen. If the former, why should they not be wholly represented? Our own State laws and Constitution would lead us to consider those blacks as freemen, and so indeed would our own ideas of natural justice: if, then, they are freemen,

they might form an equal basis for representation as though they were all white inhabitants. In either view, therefore, he could not see that the Northern States would suffer, but directly to the contrary. He thought, however, that gentlemen would do well to connect the passage in dispute with another article in the Constitution, that permits Congress, in the year 1808, wholly to prohibit the importation of slaves, and in the mean time to impose a duty of ten dollars a head on such blacks as should be imported before that period. Besides, by the new Constitution, every particular State is left to its own option totally to prohibit the introduction of slaves into its own territories. What could the Convention do more? The members of the Southern States, like ourselves, have their prejudices. It would not do to abolish slavery, by an act of Congress, in a moment, and so destroy what our southern brethren consider as property. But we may say, that although slavery is not smitten by an apoplexy, yet it has received a mortal wound, and will die of a consumption.

Mr. NEAL (from Kittery) went over the ground of objection to this section on the idea that the slave trade was allowed to be continued for 20 years. His profession, he said, obliged him to bear witness against any thing that should favor the making merchandise of the bodies of men, and unless his objection was removed, he could not put his hand to the Constitution. Other gentlemen said, in addition to this idea, that there was not even a proposition that the negroes ever shall be free, and Gen. THOMPSON exclaimed:

Mr. President, shall it be said, that after we have established our own independence and freedom, we make slaves of others? O! Washington, what a name has he had! How he has immortalized himself! But he holds those in slavery who have as good a right to be free as he has he is still for self; and, in my opinion, his character has sunk 50 per cent. On the other side, gentlemen said that the step taken in this article towards the abolition of slavery was one of the beauties of the Constitution. They observed, that in the Con

federation there was no provision whatever for its ever being abolished; but this Constitution provides, that Congress may, after 20 years, totally annihilate the slave trade; and that, as all the States, except two, have passed laws to this effect, it might reasonably be expected that it would then be done. In the interim, all the States were at liberty to prohibit it. SATURDAY, January 26. [The debate on the 9th section still continued desultory and consisted of similar objections, and answers thereto, as had before been used. Both sides deprecated the slave trade in the most pointed terms. On one side it was pathetically lamented, by Mr. NASON, Major LUSK, • Mr. NEAL, and others, that this Constitution provided for the continuation of the slave trade for 20 years. On the other, the honorable Judge DANA, Mr. ADAMS, and others, rejoiced that a door was now to be opened for the annihilation of this odious, abhorrent practice, in a certain time.]

Gen. HEATH. Mr. President, By my indisposition and absence, I have lost several important opportunities: I have lost the opportunity of expressing my sentiments with a candid freedom, on some of the paragraphs of the system, which have lain heavy on my mind. I have lost the opportunity of expressing my warm approbation on some of the paragraphs. I have lost the opportunity of hearing those judicious, enlightening, and convincing arguments, which have been advanced during the investigation of the system. This is my misfortune, and I must bear it. The paragraph respecting the migration or importation of such persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, &c., is one of those considered during my absence, and I have heard nothing on the subject, save what has been mentioned this morning; but I think the gentlemen who have spoken, have carried the `matter rather too far on both sides. I apprehend that it is not in our power to do any thing for or against those who are in slavery in the Southern States. No gentleman within these walls detests every idea of slavery more than I do; it is generally detested by the people of this Commonwealth; and I