t to recover our slaves in whatever
part of the country they may take refuge, which is a right we had not
before. In short, considering all circumstances, we have made the best
terms in our power for the security of this species of property. We
would have made better if we could; but, on the whole, I do not think
them bad." Perhaps Pinckney would not have assumed exactly this tone at
Philadelphia, but at Charleston the argument was convincing. Lowndes
then sounded the alarm that the New England states would monopolize the
carrying-trade and charge ruinous freights, and he drew a harrowing
picture of warehouses packed to bursting with rice and indigo spoiling
because the owners could not afford to pay the Yankee skippers' prices
for carrying their goods to market. But Pinckney rejoined that a Yankee
shipmaster in quest of cargoes would not be likely to ruin his own
chances for getting them, and he called attention to the great
usefulness of the eastern merchant marine as affording material for a
navy, and thus contributing to the defence of the country. Finally
Lowndes put in a plea for paper money, but with little success. The
result of the debate set the matter so clearly before the people that a
great majority of Federalists were elected to the convention. Among them
were Gadsden, the Rutledges and the Pinckneys, Moultrie, and William
Washington, who had become a citizen of the state from which he had
helped to expel the British invader. The Antifederalists were largely
represented by men from the upland counties, belonging to a population
in which there was considerable likeness all along the Appalachian chain
of mountains, from Pennsylvania to the southern extremity of the range.
There were among them many "moonshiners," as they were
called,--distillers of illicit whiskey,--and they did not relish the
idea of a federal excise. At their head was Thomas Sumter, a convert to
Patrick Henry's scheme for a southern confederacy. Their policy was one
of delay and obstruction, but it availed them little, for on the 23d of
May, after a session of eleven days, South Carolina ratified the
Constitution by a vote of 149 against 73.

[Sidenote: Important effect upon Virginia.]

[Sidenote: Debates in the Virginia Convention.]

[Sidenote: Madison and Marshall prevail and Virginia ratifies, June 25.]

The sound policy of the Federal Convention in adopting the odious
compromise over the slave-trade was now about to bear fruit. In V