ement between themselves contained in the Constitution.

4th. All remaining powers of sovereignty, which not being
delegated to the Confederate States by the Constitution nor
prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States
respectively, or to the people thereof.... Especially in
relation to the importation of African negroes was it deemed
important by the States that no power to permit it should exist
in the Confederate Government.... It will thus be seen that no
power is delegated to the Confederate Government over this
subject, but that it is included in the third class above
referred to, of powers exercised directly by the States.... This
Government unequivocally and absolutely denies its possession of
any power whatever over the subject, and cannot entertain any
proposition in relation to it.... The policy of the Confederacy
is as fixed and immutable on this subject as the imperfection of
human nature permits human resolve to be. No additional
agreements, treaties, or stipulations can commit these States to
the prohibition of the African slave trade with more binding
efficacy than those they have themselves devised. A just and
generous confidence in their good faith on this subject
exhibited by friendly Powers will be far more efficacious than
persistent efforts to induce this Government to assume the
exercise of powers which it does not possess.... We trust,
therefore, that no unnecessary discussions on this matter will
be introduced into your negotiations. If, unfortunately, this
reliance should prove ill-founded, you will decline continuing
negotiations on your side, and transfer them to us at
home....[88]

This attitude of the conservative leaders of the South, if it meant
anything, meant that individual State action could, when it pleased,
reopen the slave-trade. The radicals were, of course, not satisfied with
any veiling of the ulterior purpose of the new slave republic, and
attacked the constitutional provision violently. "If," said one, "the
clause be carried into the permanent government, our whole movement is
defeated. It will abolitionize the Border Slave States--it will brand
our institution. Slavery cannot share a government with Democracy,--it
cannot bear a brand upon it; thence another revolution ... having
achieved one revolution to escape democracy at the North, it must still
ac