wn independence and freedom,
we make slaves of others?"[36] Mason, in the Virginia convention, June
15, 1788, said: "As much as I value a union of all the states, I would
not admit the Southern States into the Union unless they agree to the
discontinuance of this disgraceful trade.... Yet they have not secured
us the property of the slaves we have already. So that 'they have done
what they ought not to have done, and have left undone what they ought
to have done.'"[37] Joshua Atherton, who led the opposition in the New
Hampshire convention, said: "The idea that strikes those who are opposed
to this clause so disagreeably and so forcibly is,--hereby it is
conceived (if we ratify the Constitution) that we become _consenters to_
and _partakers in_ the sin and guilt of this abominable traffic, at
least for a certain period, without any positive stipulation that it
shall even then be brought to an end."[38]

In the South Carolina convention Lowndes, January 16, 1788, attacked the
slave-trade clause. "Negroes," said he, "were our wealth, our only
natural resource; yet behold how our kind friends in the north were
determined soon to tie up our hands, and drain us of what we had! The
Eastern States drew their means of subsistence, in a great measure, from
their shipping; and, on that head, they had been particularly careful
not to allow of any burdens.... Why, then, call this a reciprocal
bargain, which took all from one party, to bestow it on the other!"[39]

In spite of this discussion in the different States, only one State,
Rhode Island, went so far as to propose an amendment directing Congress
to "promote and establish such laws and regulations as may effectually
prevent the importation of slaves of every description, into the United
States."[40]

39. ~Acceptance of the Policy.~ As in the Federal Convention, so in the
State conventions, it is noticeable that the compromise was accepted by
the various States from widely different motives.[41] Nevertheless,
these motives were not fixed and unchangeable, and there was still
discernible a certain underlying agreement in the dislike of slavery.
One cannot help thinking that if the devastation of the late war had not
left an extraordinary demand for slaves in the South,--if, for instance,
there had been in 1787 the same plethora in the slave-market as in
1774,--the future history of the country would have been far different.
As it was, the twenty-one years of _laissez-faire_