50 DIFFICULTIES OF DIRECT TAXATION. But thereby two-fifths of all slave-property became exempted from direct taxation. Now, direct taxation has always been impatiently felt by the American people. In forty years it was only resorted to three times (1798, 1813, 1815). Least of all could the North feel in favour of it, seeing that the South must enjoy such a handsome discount upon it, in exact proportion to its wealth in slaves. Thus the South obtained the constant benefit of the three-fifths rule as respects representation, but escaped the burthen of direct taxation.* What has been the consequence? The machinery of the United States government has had to depend almost exclusively upon indirect taxation. The North, by the force of things, has become manufacturing; the south, agricultural. Thus import duties have fallen more heavily on the South, while the North has had an interest at the same time in raising them. The crack in the American constitution, produced by slavery, has been widened by American tariffs, till at last we have seen Pennsylvanian iron-masters take indecent opportunity of the present fearful crisis to pass a piece of Protectionist legislation for their own advantage. It should be stated, indeed, that the South was mainly reconciled to certain provisions in the Constitution, especially to the power of regulating trade by a bare majority, through the provision as to slave-representation. Thus, complain as it may of * See Story, vol. ii. pp. 107 and following. + Story, vol. ii. p. 113. THE CONSTITUTION ASHAMED OF SLAVERY. 51 Northern tariffs, it has had its pound of flesh. That the South has grossly exaggerated the mischief to it of a high tariff, I shall perhaps be able to show you hereafter. At the date of the Constitution, indeed, the dangers to be apprehended either from jarring commercial interests, or from slavery, were yet far. Looking back from the Constitution to the Declaration of Independence, we may see that the spirit of freedom was losing ground; that peace, by lulling to sleep the more generous impulses, by removing the dangers of slave insurrections, by increasing the value of slave-property, was beginning to give a new direction to public feeling. Yet when we look back from the present day to the Constitution, we are struck by its difference of tone from anything we see now. It is morbidly ashamed, as you have observed, of using the words "slave" and "slavery," which the new Confederate States, copying mostly, word for word, the old Constitution, have now inserted, unabashed, in their own. It never speaks of the slave as a property, but as a person; the only right of property which it recognises in its fugitive slave clause being one in the services of the man, not in the man himself. Evidently, in the view of the framers of the Constitution, slavery was still only a disgraceful sore, to be hidden, as far as possible, till it was healed. LOR TATEC OXFORD IN LECTURE III. FROM THE CONSTITUTION TO THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE (1789— (Washington, 1789-97; J. Adams, 1797-1801; Jefferson, 1801-9; Madison, 1809-17; Monroe.) ON the 4th of March, 1789, the first Congress met under the Constitution. The first President of the United States was the man to whom all public opinion pointed as the one who should fill the post. George Washington, the Virginian, born in 1732, stands out in the history of the world as one of the very purest characters that it has to show to us. Leaving school before sixteen, at all times unacquainted with the classical languages, with never more than a smattering of French, he began life as a surveyor, and surveyed for Lord Fairfax his wild lands in the Alleghanies. Even at school he had been fond of playing at war; at nineteen he was commissioned as "major" of a frontier district, and had eventually to visit and inspect a division comprising several counties. At twenty-one we find him sent as commissioner to confer with a French officer on the Ohio. At twenty-two he made his first campaign, as second in command, against the French, became commander by the death of his chief, GEORGE WASHINGTON. 53 and received the thanks of the House of Burgesses of his colony for his operations. At three-and-twenty, in a disastrous campaign of General Braddock's against the French, he distinguished himself by his wise counsel and determined bravery. Then we find him. appointed to reorganize the provincial troops, and projecting a chain of forts. At twenty-five (having succeeded to a brother's property at Mount Vernon), he threw up his commission as commander of the provincial troops, and retired into private life. We now see him marrying a wealthy widow, sitting in the House of Burgesses, practising hospitality, exporting his produce, importing such goods as he required, keeping his own books, sought for as arbitrator. From the year 1769, being consequently then thirtyseven years of age, he takes part in the resistance of the colonists. In 1775 he is elected Commander-inchief by Congress. As such he wins no great victories, performs no dashing feats of war, His greatness is shown by doing much with little, organising armies without money and without arms, keeping the enemy at bay without powder; always ready to profit by opportunities, never quailing under reverses, and so by degrees inspiring universal confidence. Naturally slow in forming his opinions, he had entered into the struggle without at all realizing its probable issues. When I first took the command of the army," he has said himself (1776) "I abhorred the idea of independence." But by the time he thus spoke he was "fully convinced that nothing else will save us." Having carried that war to a successful issue, through the surrender of Lord Cornwallis, he was ready, on the demand of Congress, to disband his army after the peace. Unpaid, unclothed, unprovided for a day's maintenance, the victorious troops were dismissed by their Commander-in-chief. And now he was invested with the highest office in the state, which, of his own free-will only he was to lay down. John Adams was Vice-President under him. His first act was to renounce all personal emoluments, beyond the repayment of such expenses as the public good might require. Jefferson was his secretary of state, as we should say, his prime minister. The events of Washington's Presidency (the term of which was renewed in 1793), are very few. As we read his addresses (the form of messages had not been yet adopted), we find but little variation in the topics they treat of. New states are admitted, Vermont, 1791; Kentucky, 1792; the latter to be followed by Tennessee, 1796. There are treaties with European powers, (with England particularly, 1795); wars and treaties with Indian tribes. Public credit and prosperity revive and develope themselves; the home debts are funded, to a great extent paid off, partly out of surplus revenue, partly by means of new loans contracted on more favourable terms,-Holland and Belgium being the great storehouses of accessible capital abroad. Capital accumulates at home; the third annual address records the foundation of a Bank of the United States, and that the subscriptions to it were completed in |