attitude of the anti-slavery men was totally changed, and every effort to prevent the introduction of abolition petitions had brought about a debate on slavery. The gag resolutions rested on a principle which might be applied to any other subject unpleasant to a majority of the members of Congress, and therefore had to be abandoned. No greater mistake was made throughout the struggle than the assumption that slavery was a subject of such peculiar sanctity that it must not be discussed on the floor of Congress. The debates of the House went abroad, and might, perhaps, reach the eyes of slaves; but they equally reached the eyes of freemen, who could appreciate the gibe of the abolitionists, that a subject which could not be safely discussed in the Congress of the United States was an institution harmful to the country; and that, if public discussion was damaging to slavery, the proof was complete that discussion was needed.

CHAPTER XIX

INTERSTATE AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS OF SLAVERY (1822-1842)

IN the debates of Congress the point of view of the south was that the power of the federal government over slavery was negative; the use of federal machinery was disclaimed. At the same time it was expected that through the clauses of the Constitution on interstate relations affirmative support should be given to slavery. "Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts and judicial Proceedings of every other State"-that is, statutebooks and judicial records are to be accepted as evidence of legal status and of legal proceedings, under the laws of the state issuing them; the state courts were to apply the laws and decisions of other states, as of foreign countries.

When part of the states swept away all their previous legislation on slavery, the degree of effect which either side would give to the law of the other became a disputed question. For instance, did the clause on "privileges and immunities of citizens"

give a master a right to carry his slaves into another state? Did it give negro citizens in one state the right to go into another state? Indiana and Illinois forbid their entrance, but when Missouri, in 1821, tried to do the same thing, a compromise had to be contrived to get around the difficulty.'

After the unsuccessful Denmark Vesey insurrection of 1820, suspicion was strong against every negro. South Carolina passed a series of laws, commonly called the "negro seamen acts," which provided in effect that whenever a ship arrived in port any negroes on board must go to jail, there to stay till the vessel was ready to sail again. Northern states at once protested that their citizens were thus deprived of their "privileges and immunities"; and the British government made similar remonstrances." After an opinion of Attorney-General Wirt that the law was unconstitutional, South Carolina relaxed the measure as against England, but continued it against the northern states."

Under pressure from the anti-slavery people, the Massachusetts legislature, in 1844, sent Samuel Hoar as a commissioner to Charleston, to make a test case of a negro citizen of Massachusetts deprived of rights in South Carolina, to be brought to the supreme court. A committee of the South Carolina legislat

1

1 Turner, New West (Am. Nation, XIV.), chap. x.
"Niles' Register, XXVII., 242.

'Opinions of Attorneys-General, I., 659–661.

ure thereupon voted that "this agent comes here not as a citizen of the United States, but as an emissary of a foreign Government hostile to our domestic institutions and with the sole purpose of subverting our internal police." The legislature passed resolutions demanding the exclusion of Mr. Hoar, and he was notified that his life was in danger, and left Charleston-an example of how little state comity could be relied upon in any measure against slavery.1

The southern states were inclined to claim the principle that the status of a slave, created only by the law of his domicile, might under some circumstances follow him into a free state. This principle was tested in various ways. When a master deliberately took a slave into a free state, freedom suits were occasionally brought; though the northern courts sustained the state emancipation provisions they sometimes gave validity to so-called "indentures" or written agreements by negroes to serve a master for life. As to temporary residence of slaves, in Massachusetts the law in terms forbade it for any cause. In other states the courts held that the anti-slavery clauses of the constitutions did not apply to such cases. If they voluntarily returned with their masters, southern courts, especially

1 Greeley, American Conflict, I., 180-185; Niles' Register, LXVII., 226.

Commonwealth vs. Aves, 18 Pick., 193.

"Supreme Court of Illinois, in Willard vs. the People, 4 Scammon, 461; Hurd, Law of Freedom and Bondage, II., 359.

in Missouri and Louisiana, frequently held that they reverted to slavery.1

Complications also came over the claim to a “right of transit" from one place in a slave-holding state to another, or from a slave-holding state to a foreign country, through free territory, or along the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, lying between free and slave states. The claim was that interstate or international comity, and the "privileges and immunities" clause, gave the slave-owner protection during the few hours or days of travel. The laws of Indiana permitted such transit provided no purchases were made amounting to "location." "

Not so those of Pennsylvania. In 1855, John H. Wheeler, of North Carolina, on his way to New York and thence to Nicaragua, to which country he had been appointed minister, brought a slave woman named Jane to Philadelphia. While sitting on board the boat in which they had arrived, she was informed by Passmore Williamson, secretary of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, that under the laws of the state she was free to go where she would, and she left the boat against the express will of her master. Frantic efforts were made to recover Jane by habeas corpus, and Williamson was charged with abducting her; whereupon she appeared in court

1 Collins vs. America, 9 B. Monroe, 565; Rachael vs. Walker, 4 Mo. Supreme Court, 350; Goodloe, Southern Platform, 73. 'Several interesting cases in Coffin, Reminiscences, 195-202, 534-541, 554-557