n's line, with the
cultivated farms on the other: in Pennsylvania, he observed "a neat,
blooming, animated, rosy-cheeked peasantry"; in Maryland, "a squalid,
slow-motioned black population." These were barbed shafts which left
sore wounds.

When the Union was formed, African negroes were held in servitude in
all but two of the States. At the time of this debate, slavery had been
abolished, or was on the way to ultimate extinction, in every State
north of Maryland and Delaware. Climate rather than humanitarian
considerations sealed the fate of slavery at the North; and climate, in
the last analysis, fastened African slavery on the South. As the South
became committed to the raising of a staple, and that staple cotton, the
negro was regarded as an indispensable factor in plantation economy.
There were far-sighted individuals, it is true, who deprecated slavery
on humanitarian grounds; but they were, for the most part, citizens of
border States where the profitableness of negro labor was less apparent.
Even in these communities opposition to slavery was tempered by dread of
what emancipation might bring in its train. The history of Santo Domingo
revealed the hideous possibilities of a negro insurrection. No father of
a family could contemplate with equanimity the proximity of a large body
of free, semi-civilized blacks. For a time even prominent slaveholders
favored the aims of the Colonization Society which proposed to deport
emancipated blacks to the African coast. So late as 1820 the Governor of
Virginia recommended an appropriation by the legislature for the
emancipation and removal of the negroes.

Although slavery was a local institution, and regulated by state law,
its existence was recognized by the Federal Convention of 1787. The
arrangement which obtained under the old Confederation, whereby five
slaves were to count as three whites in apportioning representation and
taxes, was continued; the mutual obligation of the States to return
fugitives from justice and labor was distinctly stated in the
Constitution; and the slave trade was permitted to continue at least to
the year 1808.

In 1793, Congress had met its constitutional obligations by enacting a
law for the return of fugitive slaves; and in 1794, Congress passed an
act--"the first national act against the slave trade"--which prohibited
all trade in slaves from the United States to any foreign country. By
the opening of the new century all the States had f