The Great Conspiracy, Part 1.

of the Country to, and even beyond, that memorable 30th of November, 1782, when the Independence of the United States of America was at last conceded by Great Britain. At that time the populatio

sed by the feet of the Pilgrim Fathers, and had spread, prior to the Revolution, with greater or less rapidity,

re many, both in the South and North, who looked upon it as an evil-an inherited evil-and were anxious to prevent the increase of that evil. Hence it was that even as far back as 1699, a controv

ing few slaves themselves, "had been pretty considerable carriers of them to others" a clause of the great indictment of King George III., which, since it was not omitted for any other reason than that just given, shows pretty conclusively that where the fathers in that Declaration affirmed that "all men are created equal," they included in the term "men," black as well as white, bond as well as free; for the clause ran thus: "Determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold, he has pros

1775 declared not only a "disapprobation and abhorrence of the unnatural practice of Slavery in America" as "a practice founded in injustice and cruelty, and highly dangerous to our Liberti

through the incitements of British emissaries, a standing menace of peril to the Slaveholders. Thus it was that the South was overrun by hostile British armies, while in the North-comparatively free o

rdinance to govern the territory ceded already, or to be ceded, by individual States to the United States, extending from the 31st to the 47th degree of north latitude, which provided as "fundamental conditions between the thirteen original States and those newly described" as embryo States thereafter-to be carved out of such territory ceded or to be ceded to the United States, not only that "they shal

the Articles of Confederation required the presence of "two or more" delegates to cast the vote of a State, the vote of New Jersey was lost; and, as the same Articles required an affirmative vote of a majority of all the States-and not simply of those present-the retention of the clause prohibiting Slavery was also lost. Thus was lost the great opportunity of restricting Slavery to the then existing Slave States, and of settling the question peaceably for all time. Three years afterward a

y shall have been duly convicted; provided always that any person escaping into the same from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any on

did not; and as a direct consequence of this failure to include in it the territory south of that river, the States of Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi, which were taken out of it, were subsequently admitted to the Union as Slave States, and thus greatly augmented their political power. And at a

lminated in the clash of arms that shook the Union from its centre to its circumference. Meanwhile, as we have seen-while the Ordinance of 1787 was being enacted in the last Congress of the old Confederation at New York-the Convention to frame the

e utmost forbearance, unselfishness, and wisdom. And of all the great questions, dividing the framers of that Constitut

ute, yet this very necessity seemed to place a whip in the hands of a few States, with which to coerce the greater number of St

the total property of each State, a middle ground was conceded, which regarded the Slaves as both persons and property, and the basis both of Representation and of Direct Taxation was fixed as being the total Free population "plus three-fifths of all other persons" in each State;

e seen what they unwillingly agreed to in spite of those convictions; and they were guilty moreover of the subterfuge of using the terms "persons" and "service or labor" when they really meant "Slaves" and "Slavery." "They did this latter," Mr. Madison says, "because they did not choose to admit the right of property in man," and yet in fixing the basis of Direct Taxation as well as Congressional Representation at the total Free populati

rms of the Ordinance of '87-adapting it to the changed order of things under the new Federal Constitution-proh

e, or to be made, by Congress, shall tend to emancipate Slaves." Georgia, also, in 1802, ceded her superfluous territorial domain (south of the Ohio, and now known as Alabama and Mississippi), making

y in the territory lying south of that river. Hence it was that while the spread of Slavery was prevented in the one Section of our outlying territories by Congressional legislation, it was stimulated in the other Section by the enforced absence of such legislation. As a necessary sequence, out of

m Virginia and Kentucky, very persistently (in 1803, 1806 and 1807) petitioned Congress for permission to employ Slave Labor, but-although their petitions were favorably reported in most cases by the Committees to which they were referred-without avail, Congress evidently being of opinion that a te

possible, according to the principles of the Federal Constitution," but that its inhabitants in the meantime "should be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty, property, and the religion which they professed"-and, as "the right of property in man" had really been admitted in practice, if not in theory, by the framers of that Constitution itself-that institution was allowed to remain there. Indeed the sparseness of its population at the time of purchase and the amazing fertility of its soil and adaptability of its climate to Slave Labor, together with the th

y evil, the contemplation of which, at a later day, wrung from his lips the prophetic words, "I tremble for my Country when I reflect that God is just." It is more reasonable to suppose that, as he believed the ascendency of the Republican party of that day essential to the perpetuity of the Republic itself, and revolted against being driven into an armed alliance with Monarchical England against what he termed "our natural friend," Republican France, he reached the conclusion that the preservation of his Republican principles was of more immediate moment

lony of "Louisiana" were developed in due time the rich and

African Slave Trade; and which led the Congress, on March 22, 1794, to pass an Act prohibiting it; to supplement it in 1800 with another Act in the same direction; and on March 2, 1807, to pass another supplemental Act-to take effect January 1, 1808-still more stringent, and covering any such illicit traffic, whether to the United States or with other countries. Never was the adage that, "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley," more painfully apparent. Slaves i

of the same name, was admitted to the Union, and the balance of the

he State of Missouri-created from the Territory of that name-as a Slave State, which fin

decidedly refused to accede to the Senate proposition, and the result of the disagreement was a Committee of Conference between the two Houses, and the celebrated "Missouri Compromise," which, in the language of another-[Hon. John Holmes of Massachusetts, of said Committee on Conference, March 2, 1820.]-, was: "that the Senate should give up its combination of Missouri with Maine; that the House should abandon its attempt to restrict Slavery in Missouri; and that both Houses should concur in passing the Bill to admit Missouri as a State, with" a "restriction or proviso, excluding Slavery from all territory north and west of the new State"-that "restriction or proviso" being in these words: "That in all that territory ceded by France to the United States under the name of Louisiana, which lies north of thirty-six degrees, thirty minutes north latitude, excepting only such part thereof as is included within the limits of the State contemplated by this act, Slavery and involuntary servitude, otherwise than in the punishment of crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall

arisen-the bands of National Union were more than once rudely strained, and this time to such a degree as even to shake the faith of some of the firmest believers in the perpetuity of that Union. It was during this bitter struggle that John Adams wrote to Jeffers

n the wind," but we had not