accruing from the proceeds of the sale of the public lands,” in part, "in the aid of the removal of such portion of the colored population of the States as they may respectively ask aid in removing, on such conditions and to such places as may be mutually agreed upon." The remainder of the resolution authorized Congress to acquire suitable territory and to govern the same as Territories for such time as is necessary, after which the Territory should be established into a State or States independent of the United States and never should be admitted into the Union.3

The second resolution came from the legislature of Maryland, which State had been especially prominent in favoring the colonization movement. This resolution called for governmental aid “in the removal of the free people of color from the United States, if deemed in accordance with the Constitution;" and, if not, for such "an amendment to the Constitution as shall enable Congress to make such appropriation." No important action was taken on either of these propositions.

Similar propositions do not appear again until the winter of 1860-61, when Mr. Douglas revived this amendment, which was later in the session advocated by Mr. Clemens of Virginia. By the terms of this amendment the United States should be empowered to acquire districts of country in Africa and South America for the colonization, at the expense of the Federal Treasury, of such free negroes and mulattoes as the several States may wish to have removed from their limits, and from the District of Columbia and other places under the jurisdiction of Congress.

In 1862 President Lincoln in his annual message recommended to Congress the passage of three amendments in regard to slavery. One of these was to enable Congress to appropriate money and otherwise provide for colonizing free colored persons, with their own consent, at any place or places without the United States."

Mr. Saulsbury also included in the articles submitted by him as a substitute for the thirteenth amendment a section which

The resolution also covered internal improvements. See post, par. 156.

2 See Webster's speech of March 7, 1850. Works, v, p. 364.

App., No. 609b. Mr. Bailey, in 1825, had included in his amendment in regard to internal improvements provision for empowering Congress to promote also education, colonizą. tion, and the liberal and useful arts. App., No. 543; post, par. 171.

App., No. 609c.

5 App., No. 844.

"App., No. 930. See post, par. 120, note 1.

'App., No. 975.

permitted Congress to assist free persons of African descent to emigrate and colonize in Africa.1

As a result of the civil war, all the negroes were made free, and a general colonization scheme was thus rendered impossible. The present relations of the races seem to indicate that the negroes will remain a permanent element in the population of the United States.

116. THE FOREIGN SLAVE TRADE.

With the exception of the colonization schemes, the amendments upon slavery so far discussed were all attempts to settle the crisis of 1860-61. The slave trade was almost the only slavery question upon which there had been an earlier series of amendments.

By one of these compromises of the Constitution the importation of slaves prior to the year 1808 could not be forbidden by Congress. The ratifying convention of Rhode Island (May 29, 1790) was the only one of the State conventions proposing an amendment in regard to the slave trade. This resolution declared: "As a traffic tending to establish and continue the slavery of any part of the human species is disgraceful to the cause of liberty and humanity, Congress shall, as soon as may be, promote and establish such laws as may effectually prevent the importation of slaves of every description." This protest denotes a marked change in the public sentiment, for many of the inhabitants of Rhode Island had engaged in the slave trade and a large number of unemancipated negroes still lived within her borders.

The approach of the year 1808, when the period of the compromise would terminate, was marked by the presentation of resolutions from seven States to prohibit the further importation of slaves.3 The legislature of North Carolina appears to have been the first to propose this amendment, which it did in 1804. The approval of the legislature of Massachusetts followed in 1804-05, and a member from that State immediately introduced in Congress an amendment embodying the sense of their resolutions. The next year similar resolutions were received from the legislatures of Vermont, New Hampshire,

'App., No. 1018.

2 App., No. 120. The State had passed a gradual emancipation law in 1784.

3 App., Nos. 361a, 362b, 368, 368a, 369, 372, 375, 384. See below.

Du Bois, Suppression of the

App., No. 361a, McMaster, Hist. of U. S., ш. pp. 517-518. Slave Trade, p. 91. It is referred to in a resolution of the legislature of Georgia of non concurrence. Massachusetts Archives, House Mis., 5927.

Maryland, and Tennessee, and early in 1808 from the legislature of Pennsylvania.

Early in 1807, however, Congress had passed an act forbidding the importation of foreign slaves after January 1, 1808, thus fixing upon the earliest date possible under the compromise clause of the Constitution.' The bill passed by very large majorities, the vote in the House being 113 to 5, but over some of the details there was an acrimonious discussion, in which John Randolph took a prominent part. Notwithstanding this statute and various others, one of which made the slave trade piracy, the African slave trade continued to be a flourishing business.3

In 1860-61 numerous amendments were proposed among the compromise measures presented prohibiting the African or foreign slave trade. That the South was ready to grant this concession is made evident by the fact that the foreign slave trade was prohibited by, the constitution of the Confederate States." In the series of amendments offered by Senator Saulsbury, in 1864, as a substitute for the thirteenth amendment, there was one prohibiting the African slave trade on pain of death and forfeiture of all the rights and property of persons engaged therein."

117. INTERSTATE SLAVE TRADE AND INTRODUCTION OF FREE NEGROES.

Although the commerce clause of the Constitution gave Congress the right to prohibit the interstate slave trade, the States jealously asserted the privilege of prohibiting or permitting the

1 Statutes at Large, 11, p. 426.

Principal opposition came from Brown of Rhode Island. See Niles' Register, VII, 49–53. Du Bois, pp. 94–108.

3 The messages of the President, the reports of officials, and the debates in Congress all reveal the fact that the trade still went on. Numerous bills and resolutions have been presented on this subject. The following are the most important statutes passed by Congress down to the close of the Thirty-sixth Congress, 1860-61: (1) 1794, March 22, prohib· iting outward slave trade. (2) 1798, April 7, prohibiting slave trade to the Mississippi territory. (3) 1800, May 10, forbidding American trading in slaves from one foreign country to another. (4) 1803, February 28, forbidding importation of slaves into States prohibiting it. (5) 1804, March 26, forbidding trade to Louisiana. (6) 1807, March 2, forbidding slave trade after January 1, 1808. (7) 1818, April 20, act in addition to act of 1807. (8) 1819, March 3, statute in addition to act of 1818. (9) 1820, May 15, statute making slave trade piracy. (10) 1823, January 30, continuing act of 1820 making slave trade piracy. Between 1828 and 1861, eleven appropriation bills for the suppression of the trade. 1860, June 16, amendment to act of 1819. 1862, July 17, act to amend slave-trade act. See Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois, The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America. Appendix B in passim.

4 App., Nos. 786, 848, 857, 869f, 872, 8741, 883, 899, 915, 917, 921, 938, 947, 963, 966, 971d, 969, 5 Art. I, sec. 9. Du Bois, Slave Trade, pp. 188-191,

traffic as they chose. They further claimed the right to prohibit the entrance of free negroes. The assertion of this right by South Carolina in the passage in 1820 and the subsequent enforcement of the "negro seamen act" led Attorney-General Wirt to pronounce this act unconstitutional.1 This controversy doubtless suggested the amendment proposed by the legislature of Georgia in 1823, which declared that "no part of the Constitution ought to be construed, or shall be construed, to authorize the importation or ingress of any person of color into any one of the United States contrary to the laws of such State." This resolution received the approval of at least three other of the slave States, and the disapproval of eight States. Usually accompanying the amendments for the suppression of the foreign slave trade introduced in 1860-61, was another providing that Congress shall pass no law prohibiting or interfering with the interstate slave trade."

118. THE QUESTION OF ABOLITION.

All the attempts to protect slavery by constitutional amendment came to an end with the breaking out of the civil war, in April, 1861. No sooner had the contest actually begun than the fugitives from the service of disloyal masters began to come within the Union lines. By the authorized action of commanding officers, seconded by later statutes, their return. was forbidden. Then by the act of July 17, 1862, all fugitives the property of persons engaged in rebellion were set free, and on June 28, 1864, the fugitive slave acts were totally repealed. April 16, 1862, slavery was abolished in the District of Columbia, and on the 19th of the following June in the Territories.

All the old questions had therefore been settled by the early action of Congress. Meanwhile the advance of public sentiment had urged upon the nation two new slavery problemsthe abolition of slavery in the seceding States and its abolition in the slave States which had remained loyal. To accom

1 For account of complications resulting from this act, see Von Holst, III, 128-134. App., No. 538. Perhaps suggested also by the second Missouri compromise.

3 Louisiana, Mississippi, and Missouri. App., Nos. 538a, 538b, 538c. Disapproved by Vermont, Maine, Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware, Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky. App., No. 538.

4 App., Nos. 785, 798, 821, 831, 847, 852e, 856, 867, 869e, 874h, 894, 917, 926, 946, 959, 971c. The amendment agreed upon by the peace convention on this subject stipulated that Congress should not have "power to prevent the interstate slave trade the right of touching at ports, but not the right of transit in or through nonslave States, or sale or traffic against the laws thereof." App., No. 917. Ante, par. 112.

McDougall, Fugitive Slaves, Chap. vi and Appendix C.

plish the first of these two great objects the war power of the nation was employed, and to register that result and to extend it over the whole country amendments were passed. The withdrawal of Southern members made it possible to secure a twothirds majority in both Houses of Congress, and the nonparticipation of the seceding States in the Government made it possible to secure the necessary three-fourths majority of the States.1

119. ABOLITION IN THE SECEDING STATES.

On the 22d of September, 1862, President Lincoln issued his preliminary proclamation, providing that "all persons held as slaves on the 1st of January, 1863, in any State or parts of States then in rebellion should be thenceforward and forever free." He further announced that at the next session of Congress he should recommend another proffer of national aid to any States which should "voluntarily adopt immediate or gradual abolishment of slavery within their respective limits," and further that all persons who had remained loyal should, on the suppression of the rebellion, be "compensated for all losses by acts of the United States, including the loss for slaves."

In fulfillment of this promise, at the opening of the third session of the Thirty-seventh Congress, December 1, 1862, the President in his annual message recommended several amendments. One of these provided for the compensation of such States as should abolish slavery before January 1, 1900.2 The other declared that "all slaves who shall have enjoyed actual freedom by the chances of war at any time before the end of the rebellion shall be forever free; but all owners of such who shall not have been disloyal shall be compensated for them," etc.

In accordance with his proclamation, the Southern States having refused to accept the proffered immunity and aid, the President, on the 1st of January, 1863, issued the second and final proclamation. It declared, "as a fit and necessary war measure," that all the slaves of the rebel States and parts of States "are, and henceforward shall be, free." Thenceforward, as the Federal forces advanced, the emancipation proclamation was applied, and no further proposition was made for an amendment applying only to the seceding States.

1 For discussion of the situation, see post, par. 186.

2 Post, par. 120.