more city (Mr. Thomas) may be correct; bull
have been frequently consulted in the canvass
before my people upon the very matter allu-
ded to by this section, and I have stated time
and again that if I had an opportunity of
voting to give the legislature the power to
make such a provision as is here alluded to,
I would so vote. In compliance with the
promises I have made to my constituency, I
vote "aye."
The amendment was accordingly rejected.
Mr. DUVALL submitted the following amend-
ment as an additional section of the legisla-
tive article:
"Sec.—. The general assembly shall have
power to pass such laws as are necessary to
provide for the distribution of any appropri-
ation hereafter made by the general govern-
ment to the State of Maryland, to enable the
State to compensate the masters or claimants
of slaves emancipated from servitude by the
adoption of this Constitution."
Mr. JONES, of Somerset. I have an amend-
ment to offer which I will reduce to writing.
Mr. MILLER. That amendment brings up
the question with regard to some disposition
to be made of any appropriation that may be
furnished by the general govenrment for slaves
emancipated in Maryland; and I ask the in-
dulgence of the Convention for a few mo-
ments while I express a few thoughts upon
this question of compensation. A curious ar-
gument has been urged by the gentleman
from Baltimore city (Mr. Stockbridge,) with
reference to the duty of the State to make
compensation. He has said that the State of
Maryland has not taken this property from
the masters for public use, but has merely
decided, as between the slave and master, the
inherent and natural right of liberty in favor
of the slave, and therefore has not taken his
private property for public use. What right
have the people of Maryland to make any
such decision as against the master or the
owner of slaves ?
I say that by the adoption of the Constitu-
tion of the United States, that question was
settled long ago. Every State in this Union
agreed, when that constitution was adopted,
that the master had the right of property in
his slave. I need not refer to any decision
of any court of any State in the Union that
baa more forcibly illustrated that than the
courts of Massachusetts itself, I have before
me a decision of Chief Justice Parker in the
case of the commonwealth against Griffin in
which it was decided by that judge :
"We are to consider, then, what was the
intention of the constitution. The words of
it were used out of delicacy, so as not to
offend some in the convention whose feelings
were abhorent to slavery; but we there enter-
ed into an agreement that slaves should be con-
sidered as property. Slavery would still
have continued, if no constitution bad been
made." |
By the adoption of that instrument Chief
Justice Parker declares that the people of
Massachusetts agreed with the people of all
the rest of the country, that slaves should be
considered as property. The Supreme Court
of the United States, speaking through Jus-
tice Story, another eminent citizen of Massa-
chusetts, a distinguished jurist, in comment-
ing upon this same provision of the Consti-
tution of the United States, declared:
"It is historically well known that the ob-
ject of the clause in the Constitution, relating
lo persons owing service and labor in one
State escaping into another, was to secure to
the citizens of the slaveholding States the
complete right and title of ownership in their
flams, as property, in every State of the Union
into which they might escape from the State
where they were held in servitude. * * *
The full recognition of this right and title
was indispensable to the security of this species
of property in all the slaveholding States;
and, indeed, was so vital to the preservation
of their domestic interests and institutions,
that it cannot be doubted that it constituted
a fundamental article, without the adoption of
which the Union could not have been formed."
Now, what right have the people of Maryland
to decide as between the negro and his master,
that the master has no right of property in
him, after having adopted this Constitution
of the. United States? or that the right of the
slaveowner to the services of his slave is not
property protected by the Constitution of the
United States? When you take that away, I
care not whether you take it and actually
appropriate it to somebody else, or take it
and deprive the master of it by manumission,
and letting the slave go free, it is one and the
same thing. Yon have destroyed the right
of property which was guaranteed the slave-
owner by the Constitution of the United
States, in the services of his slave. Yon have
destroyed it—you have taken it—in other
words, because you think the public interest
requires that it should be destroyed. There
is no escape from the argument founded upon
the proposition, that compensation should be
made under such circumstances.
Here, also, is the opinion or Judge Bald-
win, a judge of the circuit court of the
United States, He says :
"The foundations of the government are laid
and rest on the rights of property in slaves, and
the whole structure must fall by disturbing
the corner stone."
Chief Justice Tilghman, of Pennsylvania,
declaring precisely the same thing, said :
"Whatever may be our opinions on the
subject of slavery, it is well known that our
Southern brethren would not have consented
to become parties to a Constitution, under
which the United States have enjoyed so much
prosperity, unless their property in slaves had
been secured."
Mr. STIRLING. Will the gentleman allow |
