own hands, and then charge ruinous freights for carrying rice,
indigo, and tobacco to the north and to Europe. On this point,
accordingly, the southern delegates acted as a unit in insisting that
Congress should not be empowered to pass navigation acts, except by a
two thirds vote of both houses. This would have tied the hands of the
federal government most unfortunately; and the New Englanders,
enlightened by their own interests, saw it to be so. Here were the
materials ready for a compromise, or, as the stout abolitionist,
Gouverneur Morris, truly called it, a "bargain" between New England and
the far south. New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut consented
to the prolonging of the foreign slave-trade for twenty years, or until
1808; and in return South Carolina and Georgia consented to the clause
empowering Congress to pass navigation acts and otherwise regulate
commerce by a simple majority of votes. At the same time, as a
concession to rice and indigo, the New Englanders agreed that Congress
should be forever prohibited from taxing exports; and thus one remnant
of mediaeval political economy was neatly swept away.

[Sidenote: This last compromise seems to make the adhesion of Virginia
doubtful.]

This compromise was carried against the sturdy opposition of Virginia.
The language of George Mason of Virginia is worth quoting, for it was
such as Theodore Parker might have used. He called the slave-trade "this
infernal traffic." "Slavery," said he, "discourages arts and
manufactures. The poor despise labour when performed by slaves. They
prevent the immigration of whites, who really strengthen and enrich a
country. They produce the most pernicious effect on manners. Every
master of slaves is born a petty tyrant. They bring the judgment of
Heaven on a country. As nations cannot be rewarded or punished in the
next world, they must be in this. By an inevitable chain of causes and
effects, Providence punishes national sins by national calamities." But
these prophetic words were powerless against the combination of New
England with the far south. One thing was now made certain,--that the
vast influence of Rutledge and the Pinckneys would be thrown
unreservedly in behalf of the new Constitution. "I will confess," said
Cotesworth Pinckney, "that I had prejudices against the eastern states
before I came here, but I have found them as liberal and candid as any
men whatever." But this compromise, which finally secured Sou