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Slavery After Louisiana Purchase: Massachusetts Challenges 3/5 Compromise, "It has been contended that negroes are human beings"
Slavery After Louisiana Purchase: Massachusetts Challenges 3/5 Compromise, "It has been contended that negroes are human beings"
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Slavery


Slavery After Louisiana Purchase: Massachusetts Challenges 3/5 Compromise, "It has been contended that negroes are human beings"

[SLAVERY.] A Defence of the Legislature of Massachusetts, or the Rights of Newengland Vindicated. Boston: Repertory Office, 1804. 28 pp., 5.75" x 9.5". Inscribed to Enoch Perley from W. Symmes. Some foxing, bent corners, uneven edges; bound through holes in left margin with string.

At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, northern and southern states deadlocked over how to count enslaved persons for the purposes of legislative representation and taxation. While southern delegates wanted to count all slaves as part of their population for these purposes, northern delegates insisted that only free people should be counted toward population. Ultimately, the convention settled on the compromise of counting three-fifths of the slave population for purposes of representation in Congress and the Electoral College, giving white southerners disproportionate power in national politics.

This extended essay by a New England Federalist opposed the disproportionate representation that slave ownership provided southern states in Congress and the Electoral College. For Federalists, the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 destroyed the balance of the Union, and seemed to be the result of a plan by Virginia to dominate the Union.

In the summer of 1804, the Massachusetts General Court adopted Federalist William Ely’s motion (included here in full in an appendix) recommending the repeal of the Three-Fifths Clause by constitutional amendment. The legislature approved the proposal on a strict party vote, 104 to 52 in the House and 21 to 14 in the Senate. Federalist Senators John Quincy Adams and Timothy Pickering of Massachusetts introduced the Ely amendment in Congress, which led to a heated debate. Ten state legislatures expressed their strong disagreement. Critics charged that Massachusetts was attempting to divide the Union.

The Fourteenth Amendment in 1868 explicitly repealed the Three-Fifths Clause and based representation on “the whole number of persons in each State.”

Excerpts:

 

“A party exists in this State, whose hostility to those concerned in the administration of the State government, no moderation can appease; who, not content with the universal exclusion of our best and most experienced citizens from the honours and offices of the national government, are rancourously bent upon degrading their characters and destroying their influence at home.” (p3)

“The COMMONWEALTH WAS NEVER IN GREATER DANGER. It is in danger of losing its sovereignty and independence, of being bound in all cases whatsoever, and of being taxed without its consent.” (p4)

“The whole number of slaves in the southern states just enumerated, is, according to the last census, eight hundred and forty seven thousand seven hundred and forty eight. Deducting from this number two fifths, the remainder gives to their masters the right of electing fifteen representatives This number exceeds by one the whole number to which Newhampshire, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, together are entitled, and is within two of the entire number of Massachusetts.” (p7)

“It has been contended that negroes are human beings, and that the privation of their political rights is a local regulation, which, furnishes no objection to including them in the computation of voters and which does not equally apply to women and minors, But it is obvious, that women, and minors are found in proportionate numbers in all the states; and of consequence their admission to the right of suffrage, or the exclusion from it may be equalized. It is not so with slaves; in some states they exist not at all, in others but to a very limited extent, and they do not in common reason confer any higher rights upon their owners, than a peculiar breed of sheep or cattle.” (p14-15)

“These general considerations merit the attention of all, who are really attached to the federal Constitution, and to the tranquillity of the country No injury can arise from an attempt to preserve the balance of power among the states; and while New England submits to the constituted authorities, and cheerfully supplies an immense revenue for the benefit of the south, let us endeavour at least to be fairly represented.” (p19)

“The importance of the Union is well known, and is truly appreciated. There is no disposition in New England to disturb it, nor any wish to interfere with the local policy of the southern States. Let them ever manage the slave trade as they please; it is their own affair. But let not the rights of the New England Yeomanry depend on importations from Guinea.... The union will, in fact, cease to exist, if all its powers be consolidated within the grasp of a single state; and it would then cease to exist, even in name.” (p20-21)

   
Enoch Perley (1749-1829) was born in Massachusetts. In the 1770s, he married Anna Flint (1753-1823), and they had at least five children. As a private in Capt. Jacob Gould’s Company, Perley responded to the Lexington Alarm in April 1775. He died in Maine. According to his family gravestone, Cloe Perley (1767-1829) was “a woman of color who lived in the family of Enoch Perley from June 1778, to the time of her death” and is buried with the family.

“W. Symmes” may be: William Symmes (1729-1807), who was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, and graduated from Harvard College in 1750. He was a tutor there from 1755 to 1758. He served as pastor of North Church in Andover from 1758 until his death. In 1759, he married Anna Gee (d. 1772), and they had nine children, three of whom died as infants. In 1774, Symmes married Susanna Powell (1729-1807). In 1803, he received a Doctor of Divinity degree from Harvard. He was “very nearly if not quite a Unitarian.”

 

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

 

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