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Maryland Ratifies the Constitution, Suggests Amendments; and Pennsylvanians Speak Out Against the Slave Trade
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The Maryland ratifying convention suggests some amendments along with their approval of the Constitution.

[CONSTITUTION]. Newspaper. Independent Gazetteer; or, The Chronicle of Freedom, Philadelphia, Pa., May 6, 1788. 4 pp., 9½ x 11½ in.

Inventory #30007.003       Price: $950

Excerpts

From page 3:

“From the MARYLAND GAZETTE, or April 29, 1788. The CONVENTION of this state, on Saturday last, determined to ratify the proposed plan of Federal Government. –YEAS 63, NAYS 11—And then appointed a committee of thirteen members to consider and report amendments to be recommended to the people. –The following amendments were proposed by a member, and referred to the committee who are now sitting—And it is hoped that the great and essential rights of the people will be declared and secured.—   

            PROPOSED AMENDMENTS...

Wherefore, whenever the ends of Government are perverted, and public liberty manifestedly endangered, and all other means of redress are ineffectual, the people may, and of right ought, to object  to reform the old, or establish a new Government—that the doctrine of nonresistance against arbitrary power and oppression is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind....

            All imposts and duties laid by Congress, shall be placed to the credit of the state in which the same be collected....

            That there shall be no national religion established by law; but that all persons be equally entitled to protection in their religious liberty....

            That the Supreme Federal Courts shall not admit to fictions to extend its jurisdiction; nor shall citizens of the same state, having controversies with each other, be suffered to make collusive assignments of their rights, to the citizens of another state, for the purpose of defeating the jurisdiction of the State Courts; nor shall any matter, or question already determined in the State Courts, be revived or agitated in the Federal Courts....

            That Congress have no power to lay a Poll-Tax.

            That the people have a right to freedom of speech, of writing and publishing their sentiments, and therefore that the freedom of the PRESS ought not to be restrained, and the printing presses ought to be free to examine the proceedings of Government, and the conduct of its officers.”

From page 2: Protesting the Slave Trade by Boycotting West Indian Produce

“A CAUTION.

WHEREAS, in the year 1787, some vessels were fitted out at the port of Philadelphia, for the iniquitous purpose of stealing the inhabitants of Africa, from all the endearments of domestic life; one of which vessels has succeeded in obtaining a number of poor blacks, and has taken the to a port in the West Indies, where they are under the iron hand of oppression. From this shameful traffic, this horrid source, the proprietors of the vessel have purchased some West India produce, which, after landing at Wilmington, they have brought up to this city, and offered for sale.

            It is a grateful circumstance to the supporters of the common rights of mankind, that the virtuous inhabitants of the city, reprobate the horrid idea.—A correspondent hopes, that the citizens will further testify their disapprobation of the practice by turning with indignation from the purchase of any property, thus basely procured by men so lost to the common feelings of humanity; notwithstanding the patriotic convention, at which Washington presided, have declared that this abominable traffic shall be continued for TWENTY years by the people of America.

From page 1:
An advertisement with engraving for a “Line of Stages” between Philadelphia and New York, started by four partners who split off from an established stage line and promising better service. 

From page 4:

An advertisement for another, different “New Line of Stages.”

And a report on the creation of a Philadelphia committee for the relief of the nearly 100 Americans captured by Algerian corsairs and Barbary pirates.


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