of them. Suffer me, Sir, to
enter into a few historical details, for the purpose of vindicating the
liberty I take to differ with you as to the accuracy of your statements.

The Convention met in Philadelphia, 25th May, 1787. On the 29th of the
same month, Mr. Randolph, of Virginia, submitted a plan of government.
It contained no allusion to fugitive slaves. On the same day, Mr.
Charles Pinckney, of South Carolina, submitted another plan. This last
provided for the surrender of fugitive criminals, but was silent about
fugitive slaves. On the 15th of June, Mr. Patterson, of New Jersey,
submitted a third plan. This also provided for the surrender of
fugitives from justice, but not from bondage. On the 18th, Mr. Hamilton
announced his plan, but the fugitive slave found no place in it. On the
26th of June, the Convention, having agreed on the general features of
the proposed Constitution in the form of resolutions, referred them to
"a committee of detail," for the purpose of reducing them to the form of
a Constitution. In these resolutions, there was not the most distant
allusion to fugitive slaves. On the 6th of August, the committee
reported the draft of a Constitution, and yet, strange as you may deem
it, the provision without which, you tell us, the Constitution could not
have been adopted, was not in it, although there was in it a provision
for the surrender of fugitive criminals. For three months had the
Convention been in session, and not one syllable had been uttered about
fugitive slaves. At last, on the 29th of August, as we learn from the
minutes, "It was moved and seconded to agree to the following
proposition, to be inserted after the 15th article: 'If any person,
bound to service or labor in any of the United States, shall escape into
another State, he or she shall not be discharged from such service or
labor in consequence of any regulation subsisting in the State to which
they escape, but shall be delivered up to the person justly claiming
their service or labor,' _which passed unanimously_." Really, Sir, I
find in this record but little evidence of the perplexity which
distressed our wise men, or of the great compromise between the North
and South, on which you dwell. The 15th article, referred to above, was
the article providing for the surrender of fugitives from justice, and
this suggested the idea, that it would be well to provide, also, for the
surrender of fugitive slaves. In an assembly consisting al