against the further importation of foreign slaves. Those already
owned and employed must on no account be disturbed. They might increase
and multiply adlibitum on their own plantations, but they were the
legitimate property of their owners. Even when Abraham Lincoln signed
the Emancipation Act, he said that he had not the right as President
to do it, but that it must be done as a war measure. By depriving the
southern soldier of his laborers, the homes must go to waste and the
strife most cease.

Politically each of the original colonies was independent had its own
assembly and its own governor. From the very first this idea of State
sovereignty was inherent, and consequently it was granted. The royal
colonies sent all legislative acts to England to be approved or vetoed
by the king. It must have required patience to await the going and
returning of the documents across the "vasty deep" in that day. These
royal colonies so governed by the king, were New York, New Hampshire,
New Jersey, Virginia and Georgia. In the proprietary colonies, or those
granted by royalty to individuals, the owner appointed the governor, but
the king exercised the right of veto in Pennsylvania and Delaware, but
not in Maryland. The charter colonies were Massachusetts, Connecticut
and Rhode Island. These held charters from the king permitting a
complete government by themselves. At this time black slaves were in
all the states. Even after the New England States had grown rich by
the selling of the negroes to the south, where the climate suited their
natures, they kept up the traffic in white slaves who, too poor to
pay their passage to the new land flowing with milk and honey, sold
themselves, hoping to buy back their freedom in the, perhaps near
future.

When the constitution of the United States was framed many
compromises were made. The framers had to select words with extreme
care lest some State might refuse to join the federation. A notable
compromise, and the very first quarrel, was the one just quoted in
reference to placing the limitation of the slave trade as far ahead as
1808. The next disagreement was about the war debt. This was called the
Assumption. The general government had contracted a debt of $54,000,000
and the States, about $25,000,000. This was in 1790. Alexander Hamilton
proposed that the government assume the whole debt. Hence the word
"assumption." The south argued that each state should pay its own debt.
That if the ge