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The Grand Convention - Interest Alone
“Religion and humanity had nothing to do with this question. Interest alone is the governing principle with nations.” With those sentences, John Rutledge of South Carolina set the terms for the darkest bargain of the Constitutional Convention. This is August 1787, told in the delegates’ own words: Gouverneur Morris calling slavery the curse of heaven on the states where it prevailed — and 2 weeks later proposing the bargain himself; George Mason, master of hundreds, thundering that every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant and that providence punishes national sins with national…
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