Chapter XL: Section 3: Neither the Constitution, nor any amendment (6)

ART. 2. Territory shall not be acquired by the United
States, unless by treaty, nor except for naval and
commercial stations and depots, unless such treaty shall be
ratified by four-fifths of all the members of the Senate.

ART. 3. Neither the Constitution nor any amendment thereof
shall be construed to give Congress power to regulate,
abolish, or control, within any State or Territory of the
United States, the relation established or recognized by the
laws thereof touching persons bound to labor or involuntary
service therein, nor to interfere with or abolish
involuntary service in the District of Columbia without the
consent of Maryland, and without the consent of the owners,
or making the owners who do not consent just compensation;
nor the power to interfere with or prohibit representatives
and others from bringing with them to the City of
Washington, retaining, and taking away persons so bound to
labor; nor the power to interfere with, or abolish
involuntary service in places under the exclusive
jurisdiction of the United States, within those States and
Territories where the same is established or recognized; nor
the power to prohibit the removal or transportation by land,
sea, or river, of persons held to labor or involuntary
service in any State or Territory of the United States to
any other State or Territory thereof where it is established
or recognized by law or usage; and the right during
transportation of touching at ports, shores, and landings,
and of landing in case of distress, shall exist, nor shall
Congress have power to authorize any higher rate of taxation
on persons bound to labor than on land.

ART. 4. The third paragraph of the second section of the
fourth article of the Constitution, shall not be construed
to prevent any of the States, by appropriate legislation,
and through the action of their judicial and ministerial
officers, from enforcing the delivery of fugitives from
labor to the person to whom such service or labor is due.

ART. 5. The foreign slave-trade and the importation of
slaves into the United States and their Territories from
places beyond the present limits thereof, are forever
prohibited.

ART. 6. The first, third, and fifth articles, together with
this article of these amendments, and the third paragraph of
the second section of the first article of the Constitution,
and the third paragraph of the second section of the fourth
article thereof, shall not be amended or abolished without
the consent of all the States.

ART. 7. Congress shall provide by law that the United States
shall pay to the owner the full value of his fugitive from
labor, in all cases where the marshal or other officers,
whose duty it was to arrest such fugitive, was prevented
from so doing by violence or intimidation from mobs and
riotous assemblies, or when after such arrest such fugitive
was rescued by force, and the owner thereby prevented and
obstructed in the pursuit of his remedy for the recovery of
such fugitive.

Mr. Field, the member of the committee from New York, dissented from this report, as also did Mr. Baldwin, of Connecticut, and Mr. Crowninshield, of Massachusetts, and Mr. Seddon, of Virginia.

This report was under discussion, and various amendments were proposed to it until the twenty-seventh day of February, a majority of your Commissioners steadily opposing all its provisions except that prohibiting the foreign slave-trade, and most of such majority being opposed to the submission, by the Convention, of any amendment of the Constitution of the United States at the present time, and in the present excited state of the public mind. During the consideration of the report various independent propositions were made by the consent, and with the concurrence of your Commissioners; among which was one by Mr. Baldwin, of Connecticut, presented on the fifteenth of February, in the form of a minority report from the committee upon the plan of adjustment, which concluded with a resolution, "That the Convention recommend to the several States to unite with Kentucky in her application to Congress to call a Convention for proposing amendments to the Constitution of the United States, to be submitted to the Legislatures of the several States or to Conventions therein, for ratification, as the one or other mode of ratification may be proposed by Congress;" and this proposition, after being discussed at length, was lost on the twenty-sixth of February, by a vote of thirteen States against to nine in its favor, a majority of your Commissioners casting the vote of New York in favor of it.

A proposition somewhat similar, embracing an address to the people of the United States, and containing a resolution for calling the Convention, was also submitted to the Convention, with the like concurrence of a majority of your Commissioners, by Mr. Tuck of New Hampshire, on the eighteenth of February, and on the twenty-sixth was also defeated by a vote of eleven States against nine.

It will be seen, therefore, that your Commissioners, with those from several other States, offered to unite in a call for a Convention, to be convened in pursuance of the Constitution of the United States; and that the slave States uniting with several of the free States, uniformly opposed, and at last defeated it.

On the twenty-third of February Mr. Vandever, of Iowa, offered the following resolution:

"_Resolved_, That whatever may be the ultimate determination
upon the amendment to the Federal Constitution, or other
propositions for the adjustment approved by this Convention,
we, the members, recommend our respective States and
constituencies to faithfully abide in the Union."

A motion to lay it upon the table prevailed by a vote of eleven to nine, a majority of your Commissioners voting in the negative.

On the twentieth of February, Mr. Field, one of your Commissioners, at the instance of a majority of them, offered, as an amendment to the Constitution to be adopted by the Convention, and proposed with any other amendments, that it should recommend the following:

"The Union of the States, under this Constitution, is
indissoluble; and no State can secede from the Union, or
nullify an act of Congress, or absolve its citizens from
their paramount obligation of obedience to the Constitution
and laws of the United States."

On the twenty-sixth of February, after several ineffectual attempts to get rid of the proposition, on points of order, it was negatived by a vote of eleven States against ten, a majority of your Commissioners casting the vote of New York in its favor.

Mr. Wilmot, of Pennsylvania, moved the following as an amendment to the seventh article, on the twenty-first of February.

"And Congress shall further provide by law, that the United
States shall make full compensation to a citizen of any
State, who, in any other State, shall suffer by reason of
violence or intimidation from mobs or riotous assemblies in
his person or property, or in the deprivation by violence of
his rights secured by this Constitution."

A motion was made to insert the word "white" before "citizen," but it failed by a vote of eleven to ten; and on the twenty-fifth of February the entire amendment was defeated by a vote of eleven to eight; your Commissioners, by a majority, casting the vote of New York in its favor.

Several other propositions upon other subjects were also submitted to the Convention, as will appear by the Journal; but it is not deemed necessary to refer to them more particularly, except, that on the eighteenth of February, Mr. Reid, of North Carolina, proposed to amend the first section of the committee's report by inserting after the word "line" in the seventh line thereof, the words "involuntary servitude is recognized; and property in those of the African race held to service or labor, in any of the States of the Union, when removed to such territory, shall be protected," and which was lost by a vote of seventeen States against to three for it. On the twenty-sixth of February, he also moved to insert in the same section, after the words "common law," the words, "and such rights shall be protected by all departments of the Territorial Government during its continuance," which the President ruled out of order, as the section had been previously gone through in detail, and was only before the Convention on its final passage.

The Report of the Committee on a plan of adjustment, already mentioned, came up for consideration on its final passage, after many amendments had been made to it, as will appear by the Journal, on the twenty-sixth of February, in the following form, and was ultimately thus adopted, by the votes stated at the end of each section:

ARTICLE XIII.