August 29, 1787: A Bargain with Slavery

Snake and Butterfly, Johann Teyler after Otto Marseus van Schrieck, 1697

National Gallery of Art, https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.110828.html

"States pursue their interests with less scruple than individuals."

--Charles Pinckney

Wednesday, August 29, 1787: The Convention Today
The “full faith and credit” clause came up. Williamson (NC) didn't understand it and moved to substitute the language in the Articles of Confederation. Charles Pinckney (SC) moved to add a provision for uniform bankruptcy laws; Madison (VA) agreed. Randolph (VA) moved a provision for accepting state actions by other States. The resolutions were referred to a committee.

A key Committee of Detail recommendation not to require a two-thirds vote to pass acts regulating trade was brought up. Charles Pinckney moved to postpone consideration. He said that the states had five profoundly different economic interests:

• “The fisheries and West India trade, which belonged to the New England States.”
• “The interest of New York lay in a free trade.”
• “Wheat and flour, the staples of the two Middle States, (New Jersey and Pennsylvania.)”
• “Tobacco, the staple of Maryland and Virginia, and partly of North Carolina.”
• “Rice and indigo, the staples of South Carolina and Georgia.”

“These different interests would be a source of oppressive regulations, if no check to a bare majority should be provided.... The power of regulating commerce was a pure concession on the part of the Southern States.”

Luther Martin (MD) seconded his motion.

Charles Cotesworth Pinckney (SC) agreed with his cousin that “it was the true interest of the Southern States to have no regulation of commerce.” However, he saw advantages in staying in union with the powerful northern states. Moreover, he appreciated “the liberal conduct” of the northern states toward the southern. (Madison, in a footnote, explained that this was a reference to “the permission to import slaves.” A deal regarding the slave trade and commercial regulation had been made outside of the Convention. This deal explained how today’s votes went “as well as the language of General Pinckney and others.”) Since C. C. Pinckney’s prejudices against northerners had been allayed by their accommodation, he was willing to allow the US Congress power to regulate trade.

G. Morris also opposed the motion. Clymer (PA) said the Northern and Middle states would be ruined if they couldn't retaliate against foreign regulation. Sherman (CT) argued that the diversity of interests that C. Pinckney described was insurance against abusive regulations. C. Pinckney responded that the minute divisions he’d made were dwarfed by the gap in interests between North and South.

While both northern and southern delegates agreed that their respective regions had interests “as different as the interests of Russia and Turkey” (in Butler’s (SC) words), a division showed up among the southern delegates: some (C. Pinckney, Williamson, and Mason (VA)) still insisted on a two-thirds threshold for commercial regulations, while some (C. C. Pinckney, Spaight (NC), Butler, Madison, and Rutledge) supported a simple majority now that they were “desirous of conciliating the affections” (again, Butler’s words) of the northerners. This appears to confirm what Madison described in his footnote: some of the northern and southern delegates had struck a deal. In exchange for giving Congress the power to regulate trade via majority vote (which the North wanted, and the South opposed), the Constitution would deny Congress the power to ban the slave trade (which most southerners wanted to continue) until 1808.

C. Pinckney’s motion to delay consideration of trade regulations failed 4–7, with Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia in support. The delegates then voted on the Committee of Detail’s recommendation that trade regulations require a majority (and not two-thirds) vote. The recommendation passed unanimously.

Butler then motioned for the following language to be added to the Constitution: “If any person bound to service or labor in any of the United States, shall escape into another State, he or she shall not be discharged from such service or labor, in consequence of any regulations subsisting in the State to which they escape, but shall be delivered up to the person justly claiming their service or labor.”

In plain language: if an enslaved American fled to a state where slavery was illegal, the freedom-seeker was still legally enslaved according to US law and was to be returned to their enslaver.

Without debate, the motion passed unanimously.

G. Morris then moved to give Congress flexibility to admit new states in such a way where they would not enjoy full equality with the original thirteen. (He had repeatedly on prior days expressed concern that new western states would have different interests from the East Coast, and that it would be dangerous to give them too much power.) Langdon (NH) and Williamson supported the motion, while Madison, Sherman, and Mason were opposed. G. Morris’s motion passed 9–2, with “noes” from Virginia and Maryland.

G. Morris motioned that Congress could not divide any state without that state’s consent.

L. Martin was opposed. Vermont, “Frankland [modern day Tennessee] and the Western county of Virginia [modern day Kentucky]” were all clamoring for independence from the states that controlled them (New York, North Carolina, and Virginia, respectively). It would be wrong to deny self-governance to the people of these territories.

G. Morris motion passed 6–5, the “noes” coming exclusively from small states: New Hampshire, Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland. This narrow passage elicited some controversy, with Langdon and Dickinson (DE) expressing dissatisfaction along the lines of L. Martin’s argument, Johnson (CT) feeling ambivalent, and G. Morris, Butler, and Wilson all resenting the small states for wanting to dismember the large states against their consent.

Synopsis

• Madison’s notes for this day indicate that a deal had been struck in private conversations between many of the delegates. In exchange for allowing the slave trade to continue until at least 1808, several of the southern delegates dropped their opposition to a provision the north wanted: giving Congress the power to pass trade regulations with a majority vote.
• Perhaps as part of the deal, a clause was added to the Constitution denying freedom to enslaved Americans who fled to states where slavery was illegal. Fugitive slaves were to be returned to their enslavers under all circumstances.
• A motion from Gouverneur Morris (PA), which would have allowed Congress to admit new states in unequal ways, passed.
• Another motion from G. Morris, stating that states could only be divided with their consent, passed narrowly.

Delegates Today

• Johnson (CT) again dined at Wilson’s (PA). His miscellaneous expenses totaled 10.
• Washington (VA) “Did the same as yesterday [dined and spent the evening with Mary and Robert Morris (PA)].”
• Franklin presided at a meeting of Pennsylvania’s Supreme Executive Council.
• Gerry (MA) wrote his wife for the fourth time this week. “What is the cause my dearest love that you are of late so liable to fainting? I am quite distressed about it. If you do not find relief soon, I shall quit the convention; & let their proceedings take their chance. Indeed I have been a spectator for some time; for I am very different in political principles from my colleagues. I am very well but sick of being here; indeed I ardently long to meet my dear Nancy.”

Philadelphia Today

• It rained this morning, was cloudy in the afternoon, then cleared.
• An ad in the Pennsylvania Gazette announced the publication by Young & McCullough, at the corner of Second and Chestnut, of “THE AMERICAN SPELLING BOOK OR, First part of a Grammatical Institute of the English Language - Seventh Edition. By NOAH WEBSTER, Esquire.” The ad, over a third of a page, included recommendations from Connecticut Lt. Governor Oliver Wolcott, Yale President Ezra Stiles, Connecticut Congressman Stephen M. Mitchell, artist John Trumbull, poet Joel Barlow (brother-in-law of Baldwin (GA)), and many others.