Chapter XXVIII: Front Matter (28)

Finally, this clause prohibits the taking for public use of "_property_." The constitution of the United States does not recognise slaves as "PROPERTY" any where, and it does not recognise them in _any sense_ in the District of Columbia. All allusions to them in the constitution recognise them as "persons." Every reference to them points _solely_ to the element of _personality_; and thus, by the strongest implication, declares that the constitution _knows_ them only as "persons," and _will_ not recognise them in any other light. If they escape into free States, the constitution authorizes their being taken back. But how? Not as the property of an "owner," but as "persons;" and the peculiarity of the expression is a marked recognition of their _personality_--a refusal to recognise them as chattels--"persons _held_ to service." Are _oxen_ "_held_ to service?" That can be affirmed only of _persons_. Again, slaves give political power as "persons." The constitution, in settling the principle of representation, requires their enumeration in the census. How? As property? Then why not include race horses and game cocks? Slaves, like other inhabitants, are enumerated as "persons." So by the constitution, the government was pledged to non-interference with "the migration or importation of such persons" as the States might think proper to admit until 1808, and authorized the laying of a tax on each "person" so admitted. Further, slaves are recognised as _persons_ by the exaction of their _allegiance_ to the government. For offences against the government slaves are tried as _persons_; as persons they are entitled to counsel for their defence, to the rules of evidence, and to "due process of law," and as _persons_ they are punished. True, they are loaded with cruel disabilities in courts of law, such as greatly obstruct and often inevitably defeat the ends of justice, yet they are still recognised as _persons_. Even in the legislation of Congress, and in the diplomacy of the general government, notwithstanding the frequent and wide departures from the integrity of the constitution on this subject, slaves are not recognised as _property_ without qualification. Congress has always refused to grant compensation for slaves killed or taken by the enemy, even when these slaves had been impressed into the United States' service. In half a score of cases since the last war, Congress has rejected such applications for compensation. Besides, both in Congressional acts, and in our national diplomacy, slaves and property are not used as convertible terms. When mentioned in treaties and state papers it is in such a way as to distinguish them from mere property, and generally by a recognition of their _personality_. In the invariable recognition of slaves as _persons_, the United States' constitution caught the mantle of the glorious Declaration, and most worthily wears it.--It recognizes all human beings as "men," "persons," and thus as "equals." In the original draft of the Declaration, as it came from the hand of Jefferson, it is alleged that Great Britain had "waged a cruel war against _human_ nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people, carrying them into slavery, * * determined to keep up a market where MEN should be bought and sold,"--thus disdaining to make the charter of freedom a warrant for the arrest of _men_, that they might be shorn both of liberty and humanity.

The celebrated Roger Sherman, one of the committee of five appointed to draft the Declaration of Independence, and also a member of the convention that formed the United States' constitution, said, in the first Congress after its adoption: "The constitution _does not consider these persons,_ (slaves,) _as a species of property._"--[Lloyd's Cong. Reg. v. 1, p. 313.] That the United States' Constitution does not make slaves "property," is shown in the fact that no person, either as a citizen of the United States, or by having his domicile within the United States' government, can hold slaves. He can hold them only by deriving his power from _state_ laws, or from the laws of Congress, if he hold slaves within the District. But no person resident within the United States' jurisdiction, and not within the District, nor within a state whose laws support slavery, nor "held to service" under the laws of such state or district, having escaped therefrom, _can be held as a slave_.

Men can hold _property_ under the United States' government though residing beyond the bounds of any state, district, or territory. An inhabitant of the Wisconsin Territory can hold property there under the laws of the United States, but he cannot hold _slaves_ there under the United States' laws, nor by virtue of the United States' Constitution, nor upon the ground of his United States citizenship, nor by having his domicile within the United States' jurisdiction. The constitution no where recognizes the right to "slave property," _but merely the fact that the states have jurisdiction each in its own limits, and that there are certain "persons" within their jurisdictions "held to service" by their own laws._

Finally, in the clause under consideration, "private property" is not to be taken "without _just_ compensation." "JUST!" If justice is to be appealed to in determining the amount of compensation, let her determine the _grounds_ also. If it be her province to say _how much_ compensation is "just," it is hers to say whether _any_ is "just,"--whether the slave is "just" property _at all_, rather than a "_person_." Then, if justice adjudges the slave to be "private property," it adjudges him to be _his own_ property, since the right to one's _self_ is the first right--the source of all others--the original stock by which they are accumulated--the principal, of which they are the interest. And since the slave's "private property" has been "taken," and since "compensation" is impossible--there being no _equivalent_ for one's self--the least that can be done is to restore to him his original private property.

Having shown that in abolishing slavery, "property" would not be "taken for public use," it may be added that, in those states where slavery has been abolished by law, no claim for compensation has been allowed. Indeed the manifest absurdity of demanding it, seems to have quite forstalled the _setting up_ of such a claim.

The abolition of slavery in the District, instead of being a legislative anomaly, would proceed upon the principles of every day legislation. It has been shown already, that the United States' Constitution does not recognize slaves as "property." Yet ordinary legislation is full of precedents, showing that even _absolute_ property is in many respects wholly subject to legislation. The repeal of the law of entailments--all those acts that control the alienation of property, its disposal by will, its passing to heirs by descent, with the question, who shall be heirs, and what shall be the rule of distribution among them, or whether property shall be transmitted at all by descent, rather than escheat to the state--these, with statutes of limitation, and various other classes of legislative acts, serve to illustrate the acknowledged scope of the law-making power, even where property _is in every sense absolute_. Persons whose property is thus affected by public laws, receive from the government no compensation for their losses, unless the state has been put in possession of the property taken from them.

The preamble of the United States' Constitution declares it to be a fundamental object of the organization of the government "to ESTABLISH JUSTICE." Has Congress _no power_ to do that for which it was made the _depository of power_? CANNOT the United States' Government fulfil the purpose _for which it was brought into being_?

To abolish slavery, is to take from no rightful owner his property; but to "_establish justice_" between two parties. To emancipate the slave, is to "_establish justice_" between him and his master--to throw around the person, character, conscience, liberty, and domestic relations of the one, _the same law_ that secures and blesses the other. In other words, to prevent by _legal restraints_ one class of men from seizing upon another class, and robbing them at pleasure of their earnings, their time, their liberty, their kindred, and the very use and ownership of their own persons. Finally, to abolish slavery is to proclaim and _enact_ that innocence and helplessness--now _free plunder_--are entitled to _legal protection_; and that power, avarice, and lust, shall no longer gorge upon their spoils under the license, and by the ministrations of _law_! Congress, by possessing "exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever," has a _general protective power_ for ALL the inhabitants of the District. If it has no power to protect _one_ man, it has none to protect another--none to protect _any_--and if it _can_ protect _one_ man and is _bound_ to protect him, it _can_ protect _every_ man--all men--and is _bound_ to do it. All admit the power of Congress to protect the masters in the District against their slaves. What part of the constitution gives the power? The clause so often quoted,--"power of legislation in all cases whatsoever," equally in the "_case_" of defending the blacks against the whites, as in that of defending the whites against the blacks. The power is given also by Art. 1, Sec. 8, clause 15--"Congress shall have power to suppress insurrections"--a power to protect, as well blacks against whites, as whites against blacks. If the constitution gives power to protect _one_ class against the other, it gives power to protect _either_ against the other. Suppose the blacks in the District should seize the whites, drive them into the fields and kitchens, force them to work without pay, flog them, imprison them, and sell them at their pleasure, where would Congress find power to restrain such acts? Answer; a _general_ power in the clause so often cited, and an _express_ one in that cited above--"Congress shall have power to suppress insurrections." So much for a _supposed_ case. Here follows a _real_ one. The whites in the District _are perpetrating these identical acts_ upon seven thousand blacks daily. That Congress has power to restrain these acts in _one_ case, all assert, and in so doing they assert the power "in _all_ cases whatsoever." For the grant of power to suppress insurrections, is an _unconditional_ grant, not hampered by provisos as to the color, shape, size, sex, language, creed, or condition of the insurgents. Congress derives its power to suppress this _actual_ insurrection, from the same source whence it derived its power to suppress the _same_ acts in the case _supposed_. If one case is an insurrection, the other is. The _acts_ in both are the same; the _actors_ only are different. In the one case, ignorant and degraded--goaded by the memory of the past, stung by the present, and driven to desperation by the fearful looking for of wrongs for ever to come. In the other, enlightened into the nature of _rights_, the principles of justice, and the dictates of the law of love, unprovoked by wrongs, with cool deliberation, and by system, they perpetrate these acts upon those to whom they owe unnumbered obligations for _whole lives_ of unrequited service. On which side may palliation be pleaded, and which party may most reasonably claim an abatement of the rigors of law? If Congress has power to suppress such acts _at all_, it has power to suppress them _in_ all.

It has been shown already that _allegiance_ is exacted of the slave. Is the government of the United States unable to grant _protection_ where it exacts _allegiance_? It is an axiom of the civilized world, and a maxim even with savages, that allegiance and protection are reciprocal and correlative. Are principles powerless with us which exact homage of barbarians? _Protection is the_ CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT _of every human being under the exclusive legislation of Congress who has not forfeited it by crime._

In conclusion, I argue the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District, from Art. 1, sec, 8, clause 1, of the constitution; "Congress shall have power to provide for the common defence and the general welfare of the United States." Has the government of the United States no power under this grant, to legislate within its own exclusive jurisdiction on subjects that vitally affect its interests? Suppose the slaves in the district should rise upon their masters, and the United States' government, in quelling the insurrection, should kill any number of them. Could their masters claim compensation of the government? Manifestly not; even though no proof existed that the particular slaves killed were insurgents. This was precisely the point at issue between those masters, whose slaves were killed by the State troops at the time of the Southampton insurrection, and the Virginia Legislature: no evidence was brought to show that the slaves killed by the troops were insurgents; yet the Virginia Legislature decided that their masters were _not entitled to compensation_. They proceeded on the sound principle, that a government may in self-protection destroy the claim of its subjects even to that which has been recognized as property by its own acts. If in providing for the common defence, the United States' government, in the case supposed, would have power to destroy slaves both as _property_ and _persons_, it surely might stop _half-way_, destroy them _as property_ while it legalized their existence as _persons_, and thus provided for the common defence by giving them a personal and powerful interest in the government, and securing their strength for its defence.

Like other Legislatures, Congress has power to abate nuisances--to remove or tear down unsafe buildings--to destroy infected cargoes--to lay injunctions upon manufactories injurious to the public health--and thus to "provide for the common defence and general welfare" by destroying individual property, when such property puts in jeopardy the public weal.

Granting, for argument's sake, that slaves are "property" in the District of Columbia--if Congress has a right to annihilate property in the District when the public safety requires it, it may surely annihilate its existence _as_ property when the public safety requires it, especially if it transform into a _protection_ and _defence_ that which as _property_ perilled the public interests. In the District of Columbia there are, besides the United States' Capitol, the President's house, the national offices, &c. of the Departments of State, Treasury, War, and Navy, the General Post-office, and Patent Office. It is also the residence of the President, all the highest officers of the government, both houses of Congress, and all the foreign ambassadors. In this same District there are also _seven thousand slaves_. Jefferson, in his Notes on Va. p. 241, says of slavery, that "the State permitting one half of its citizens to trample on the rights of the other, _transforms them into enemies_;" and Richard Henry Lee, in the Va. house of Burgesses in 1758, declared that to those who held them, "_slaves must be natural enemies_." Is Congress so _impotent_ that it _cannot_ exercise that right pronounced both by municipal and national law, the most sacred and universal--the right of self-preservation and defence? Is it shut up to the _necessity_ of keeping seven thousand "enemies" in the heart of the nation's citadel? Does the iron fiat of the constitution doom it to such imbecility that it _cannot_ arrest the process that _made_ them "enemies," and still goads to deadlier hate by fiery trials, and day by day adds others to their number? Is _this_ providing for the common defence and general welfare? If to rob men of rights excites their hate, freely to restore them and make amends, will win their love.

By emancipating the slaves in the District, the government of the United States would disband an army of "enemies," and enlist "for the common defence and general welfare," a body guard of _friends_ seven thousand strong. In the last year, a handful of British soldiers sacked Washington city, burned the capitol, the President's house, and the national offices and archives; and no marvel, for thousands of the inhabitants of the District had been "TRANSFORMED INTO ENEMIES." Would _they_ beat back invasion? If the national government had exercised its constitutional "power to provide for the common defence and to promote the general welfare," by turning those "enemies" into friends, then, instead of a hostile ambush lurking in every thicket inviting assault, and secret foes in every house paralyzing defence, an army of allies would have rallied in the hour of her calamity, and shouted defiance from their munitions of rocks; whilst the banner of the republic, then trampled in dust, would have floated securely over FREEMEN exulting amidst bulwarks of strength.

To show that Congress can abolish slavery in the District, under the grant of power "to provide for the common defence and to promote the general welfare," I quote an extract from a speech of Mr. Madison, of Va., in the first Congress under the constitution, May 13, 1789. Speaking of the abolition of the slave trade, Mr. Madison says: "I should venture to say it is as much for the interests of Georgia and South Carolina, as of any state in the union. Every addition they receive to their number of slaves tends to _weaken_ them, and renders them less capable of self-defence. In case of hostilities with foreign nations, they will be the means of _inviting_ attack instead of repelling invasion. It is a necessary duty of the general government to protect every part of the empire against danger, as well _internal_ as external. _Every thing, therefore, which tends to increase this danger, though it may be a local affair, yet if it involves national expense or safety, it becomes of concern to every part of the union, and is a proper subject for the consideration of those charged with the general administration of the government._" See Cong. Reg. vol. 1, p. 310, 11.

POSTSCRIPT

My apology for adding a _postscript_, to a discussion already perhaps too protracted, is the fact that the preceding sheets were in the hands of the printer, and all but the concluding pages had gone through the press, before the passage of Mr. Calhoun's late resolutions in the Senate of the United States. A proceeding so extraordinary,--if indeed the time has not passed when _any_ acts of Congress in derogation of freedom and in deference to slavery, can be deemed extraordinary,--should not be suffered to pass in silence at such a crisis as the present; especially as the passage of one of the resolutions by a vote of 36 to 9, exhibits a shift of position on the part of the South, as sudden as it is unaccountable, being nothing less than the surrender of a fortress which until then they had defended with the pertinacity of a blind and almost infuriated fatuity. Upon the discussions during the pendency of the resolutions, and upon the vote, by which they were carried, I make no comment, save only to record my exultation in the fact there exhibited, that great emergencies are _true touchstones_, and that henceforward, until this question is settled, whoever holds a seat in Congress will find upon, and all around him, a pressure strong enough to TEST him--a focal blaze that will find its way through the carefully adjusted cloak of fair pretension, and the sevenfold brass of two-faced political intrigue, and _no_-faced _non-committalism_, piercing to the dividing asunder of joints and marrow. Be it known to every northern man who aspires to a seat in Congress, that hereafter it is the destiny of congressional action on this subject, to be a MIGHTY REVELATOR--making secret thoughts public property, and proclaiming on the house-tops what is whispered in the ear--smiting off masks, and bursting open sepulchres beautiful outwardly, and heaving up to the sun their dead men's bones. To such we say,--_Remember the Missouri Question, and the fate of those who then sold the North, and their own birthright_!

Passing by the resolutions generally without remark--the attention of the reader is specially solicited to Mr. Clay's substitute for Mr. Calhoun's fifth resolution.

"Resolved, That when the District of Columbia was ceded by the
states of Virginia and Maryland to the United States, domestic
slavery existed in both of these states, including the ceded
territory, and that, as it still continues in both of them, it
could not be abolished within the District without a violation
of that good faith, which was implied in the cession and in the
acceptance of the territory; nor, unless compensation were made
to the proprietors of slaves, without a manifest infringement of
an amendment to the constitution of the United States; nor
without exciting a degree of just alarm and apprehension in the
states recognizing slavery, far transcending in mischievous
tendency, any possible benefit which could be accomplished by
the abolition."

By voting for this resolution, the south, by a simultaneous movement, shifted its mode of defense, not so much by taking a position entirely new, as by attempting to refortify an old one--never much trusted in, and abandoned mainly long ago, as being unable to hold out against assault however unskilfully directed. In the debate on this resolution, though the southern members of Congress did not _professedly_ retreat from the ground hitherto maintained by them--that Congress has no power by the constitution to abolish slavery in the District--yet in the main they silently drew off from it.

The passage of this resolution--with the vote of every southern senator, forms a new era in the discussion of this question.

We cannot join in the lamentations of those who bewail it. We hail it, and rejoice in it. It was as we would have had it--offered by a southern senator, advocated by southern senators, and on the ground that it "was no compromise"--that it embodied the true southern principle--that "this resolution stood on as high ground as Mr. Calhoun's"--(Mr. Preston)--"that Mr. Clay's resolution was as strong as Mr. Calhoun's"--(Mr. Rives)--that "the resolution he (Mr. Calhoun) now refused to support, was as strong as his own, and that in supporting it, there was no abandonment of principle by the south."--(Mr. Walker, of Mi.)--further, that it was advocated by the southern senators generally as an expression of their views, and as setting the question of slavery in the District on its _true_ ground--that finally when the question was taken, every slaveholding senator, including Mr. Calhoun himself, voted for the resolution.

By passing this resolution, and with such avowals, the south has surrendered irrevocably the whole question at issue between them and the petitioners for abolition in the District. It has, unwittingly but explicitly, conceded the main question argued in the preceding pages.

The _only_ ground taken against the right of Congress to abolish slavery in the District is, that it existed in Maryland and Virginia when the cession was made, and "_as it still continues in both of them_, it could not be abolished without a violation of that good faith which was implied in the cession." &c. The _sole argument_ is _not_ that exclusive _sovereignty_ has no power to abolish slavery within its jurisdiction, _nor_ that the powers of even _ordinary legislation_ cannot do it,--_nor_ that the clause granting Congress "exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over such District," gives no power to do it; but that the _unexpressed expectation_ of one of the parties that the other would not "in _all_ cases" _use_ the power which said party had consented _might be used_ "_in all cases_," _prohibits_ the use of it. The only cardinal point in the discussion, is here not only _yielded_, but formally laid down by the South as the leading article in their creed on the question of Congressional jurisdiction over slavery in the District. The _sole reason_ given why Congress should not abolish, and the sole evidence that if it did, such abolition would be a violation of "good faith," is that "_slavery still continues in those states_,"--thus explicitly admitting, that if slavery did _not_ "still continue" in those States, Congress _could_ abolish it in the District. The same admission is made also in the _premises_, which state that slavery existed in those states _at the time of the cession_, &c. Admitting that if it had _not_ existed there then, but had grown up in the District under _United States' laws_, Congress might constitutionally abolish it. Or that if the ceded parts of those states had been the _only_ parts in which slaves were held under their laws, Congress might have abolished in such a contingency also. The cession in that case leaving no slaves in those states,--no "good faith," would be "implied" in it, nor any "violated," by an act of abolition. The principle of the resolution makes this further admission, that if Maryland and Virginia should at once abolish their slavery, Congress might at once abolish it in the District. The principle goes even further than this, and _requires_ Congress in such case to abolish slavery in the District "by the _good faith implied_ in the cession and acceptance of the territory." Since, according to the spirit and scope of the resolution, this "implied good faith" of Maryland and Virginia in making the cession, was that Congress would do nothing within the District which should go to counteract the policy, or bring into disrepute the "institutions," or call in question the usages, or even in any way ruffle the prejudices of those states, or do what _they_ might think would unfavorably bear upon their interests; _themselves_ of course being the judges.

But let us dissect another limb of the resolution. What is to be understood by "that good faith which was IMPLIED?" It is of course an admission that such a condition was not _expressed_ in the acts of cession--that in their _terms_ there is nothing restricting the power of Congress on the subject of slavery in the District--not a word alluding to it, nor one inserted with such an _intent_. This "implied faith," then, rests on no clause or word in the United States' Constitution, or in the acts of cession, or in the acts of Congress accepting the cession, nor does it rest on any declarations of the legislatures of Maryland and Virginia made at the time, or in that generation, nor on any _act_ of theirs, nor on any declaration of the people of those states, nor on the testimony of the Washingtons, Jeffersons, Madisons, Chaces, Martins, and Jennifers, of those states and times. The assertion rests _on itself alone_! Mr. Clay and the other senators who voted for the resolution, _guess_ that Maryland and Virginia supposed that Congress would by no means _use_ the power given them by the constitution, except in such ways as would be well pleasing in the eyes of those states; especially as one of them was the "Ancient Dominion!" And now after the lapse of half a century, this _assumed expectation_ of Maryland and Virginia, the existence of which is mere matter of conjecture with the 36 senators, is conjured up and duly installed upon the judgment-seat of final appeal, before whose nod constitutions are to flee away, and with whom, solemn grants of power and explicit guaranties are, when weighed in the balance, altogether lighter than vanity!

But let us survey it in another light. Why did Maryland and Virginia leave so much to be "_implied_?" Why did they not in some way express what lay so near their hearts? Had their vocabulary run so low that a single word could not be eked out for the occasion? Or were those states so bashful of a sudden that they dare not speak out and tell what they wanted? Or did they take it for granted that Congress would always act in the premises according to their wishes, and that too, without their _making known_ their wishes? If, as honorable senators tell us, Maryland and Virginia did verily travail with such abounding _faith_, why brought they forth no _works_?

It is as true in _legislation_ as in religion, that the only _evidence_ of "faith" is _works_, and that "faith" _without_ works is _dead_, i.e. has no _power_. But here, forsooth, a blind implication with nothing _expressed_, an "implied" _faith_ without works, is _omnipotent_. Mr. Clay is lawyer enough to know that even a _senatorial hypothesis_ as to what must have been the _understanding_ of Maryland and Virginia about congressional exercise of constitutional power, _abrogates no grant_, and that to plead it in a court of law, would be of small service except to jostle "their Honors'" gravity! He need not be told that the constitution gives Congress "power to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over such District." Nor that the legislatures of Maryland and Virginia constructed their acts of cession with this clause _before their eyes_, and that both of them declared those acts made "in _pursuance_" of said clause. Those states were aware that the United States in their constitution had left nothing to be "_implied_" as to the power of Congress over the District;--an admonition quite sufficient one would think to put them on their guard, and induce them to eschew vague implications and resort to _stipulations_. Full well did they know also that those were times when, in matters of high import, _nothing_ was left to be "implied." The colonies were then panting from a twenty years' conflict with the mother country, about bills of rights, charters, treaties, constitutions, grants, limitations, and _acts of cession_. The severities of a long and terrible discipline had taught them to guard at all points _legislative grants_, that their exact import and limit might be self-evident--leaving no scope for a blind "faith," that _somehow_ in the lottery of chances there would be no blanks, but making all sure by the use of explicit terms, and wisely chosen words, and _just enough_ of them. The Constitution of the United States with its amendments, those of the individual states, the national treaties, the public documents of the general and state governments at that period, show the universal conviction of legislative bodies, that when great public interest were at stake, nothing should be left to be "implied."

Further: suppose Maryland and Virginia had expressed their "implied faith" in _words_, and embodied it in their acts of cession as a proviso, declaring that Congress should not "exercise exclusive legislation in _all_ cases whatsoever over the District," but that the "case" of _slavery_ should be an exception: who does not know that Congress, if it had accepted the cession on those terms, would have violated the Constitution; and who that has ever studied the free mood of those times in its bearings on slavery--proofs of which are given in scores on the preceding pages--can for an instant believe that the people of the United States would have altered their Constitution for the purpose of providing for slavery an inviolable sanctuary; that when driven in from its outposts, and everywhere retreating discomfited before the march of freedom, it might be received into everlasting habitations on the common homestead and hearth-stone of this free republic? Besides, who can believe that Virginia made such a condition, or cherished such a purpose, when at that very moment, Washington, Jefferson, Wythe, Patrick Henry, St. George Tucker, and almost all her illustrious men, were advocating the abolition of slavery by law. When Washington had said, two years before, Maryland and Virginia "must have laws for the gradual abolition of slavery and at a period _not remote_;" and when Jefferson in his letter to Price, three years before the cession, had said, speaking of Virginia, "This is the next state to which we may turn our eyes for the interesting spectacle of justice in conflict with avarice and oppression--a conflict in which THE SACRED SIDE IS GAINING DAILY RECRUITS;" when voluntary emancipations on the soil were then progressing at the rate of between one and two thousand annually, (See Judge Tucker's "Dissertation on Slavery," p. 73;) when the public sentiment of Virginia had undergone, and was undergoing so mighty a revolution that the idea of the continuance of slavery as a permanent system could not be _tolerated_, though she then contained about half the slaves in the Union. Was this the time to stipulated for the _perpetuity_ of slavery under the exclusive legislation of Congress? and that too at the _same_ session of Congress when _every one_ of her delegation voted for the abolition of slavery in the North West Territory; a territory which she had herself ceded to Congress, and along with it had surrendered her jurisdiction over many of her citizens, inhabitants of that territory, who held slaves there--and whose slaves were emancipated by that act of Congress, in which all her delegation with one accord participated?

Now in view of the universal belief then prevalent, that slavery in this country was doomed to short life, and especially that in Maryland and Virginia it would be _speedily_ abolished--are we to be told that those states _designed_ to bind Congress _never_ to terminate it? Are we to adopt the monstrous conclusion that this was the intent of the Ancient Dominion--thus to _bind_ the United States by an "implied faith," and that when the United States _accepted_ the cession, she did solemnly thus plight her troth, and that Virginia did then so _understand_ it? Verily one would think that honorable senators supposed themselves deputed to do our _thinking_ as well as our legislation, or rather, that they themselves were absolved from such drudgery by virtue of their office!

Another absurdity of this dogma about "implied faith" is, that where there was no power to exact an _express_ pledge, there was none to demand an _implied_ one, and where there was no power to _give_ the one, there was none to give the _other_. We have shown already that Congress could not have accepted the cession with such a condition. To have signed away a part of its constitutional grant of power would have been a _breach_ of the Constitution. Further, the Congress which accepted the cession was competent to pass a resolution pledging itself not to _use all_ the power over the District committed to it by the Constitution. But here its power ended. Its resolution would only bind _itself_. Could it bind the _next_ Congress by its authority? Could the members of one Congress say to the members of another, because we do not choose to exercise all the authority vested in us by the Constitution, therefore you _shall_ not? This would have been a prohibition to do what the Constitution gives power to do. Each successive Congress would still have gone to the Constitution for its power, brushing away in its course the cobwebs stretched across its path by the officiousness of an impertinent predecessor. Again, the legislatures of Virginia and Maryland, had no power to bind Congress, either by an express or an implied pledge, never to abolish slavery in the District. Those legislatures had no power to bind _themselves_ never to abolish slavery within their own territories--the ceded parts included. Where then would they get power to bind _another_ not to do what they had no power to bind themselves not to do? If a legislature could not in this respect control the successive legislatures of its own State, could it control the successive Congresses of the United States?

But perhaps we shall be told, that the "implied faith" in the acts of cession of Maryland and Virginia was _not_ that Congress should _never_ abolish slavery in the District, but that it should not do it until _they_ had done it within their bounds! Verily this "faith" comes little short of the faith of miracles! "A good rule that works both ways." First, Maryland and Virginia have "good faith" that Congress will _not_ abolish until _they_ do; and then just as "good faith" that Congress _will_ abolish _when_ they do! Excellently accommodated! Did those States suppose that Congress would legislate over the national domain, the common jurisdiction of _all_, for Maryland and Virginia alone? And who, did they suppose, would be judges in the matter?--themselves merely? or the whole Union?

This "good faith implied in the cession" is no longer of doubtful interpretation. The principle at the bottom of it, when fairly stated, is this:--That the Government of the United States are bound in "good faith" to do in the District of Columbia, without demurring, just what and when, Maryland and Virginia do in their own States. In short, that the general government is eased of all the burdens of legislation within its exclusive jurisdiction, save that of hiring a scrivener to copy off the acts of the Maryland and Virginia legislatures as fast as they are passed, and engross them, under the title of "Laws of the United States, for the District of Columbia!" A slight additional expense would also be incurred in keeping up an express between the capitols of those States and Washington city, bringing Congress from time to time its "_instructions_" from head quarters--instructions not to be disregarded without a violation of that "good faith implied in the cession," &c.

This sets in strong light the advantages of "our glorious Union," if the doctrine of Mr. Clay and the thirty-six Senators be orthodox. The people of the United States have been permitted to set up at their own expense, and on their own territory, two great _sounding boards_ called "Senate Chamber" and "Representatives' Hall," for the purpose of sending abroad "by authority" _national_ echoes of _state_ legislation!--permitted also to keep in their pay a corps of pliant _national_ musicians, with peremptory instructions to sound on any line of the staff according as Virginia and Maryland may give the _sovereign_ key note!

Though this may have the seeming of mere raillery, yet an analysis of the resolution and of the discussions upon it, will convince every fair mind that it is but the legitimate carrying out of the _principle_ pervading both. They proceed virtually upon the hypothesis that the will and pleasure of Virginia and Maryland are _paramount_ to those of the _Union_. If the main design of setting apart a federal district had been originally the accommodation of Maryland, Virginia, and the south, with the United States as an _agent_ to consummate the object, there could hardly have been higher assumption or louder vaunting. The sole object of _having_ such a District was in effect totally perverted in the resolution of Mr. Clay, and in the discussions of the entire southern delegation, upon its passage. Instead of taking the ground, that the benefit of the whole Union was the sole _object_ of a federal district, that it was designed to guard and promote the interests of _all_ the states, and that it was to be legislated over _for this end_--the resolution proceeds upon an hypothesis _totally the reverse_. It takes a single point of _state_ policy, and exalts it above NATIONAL interests, utterly overshadowing them; abrogating national _rights_; making void a clause of the Constitution; humbling the general government into a subject--crouching for favors to a superior, and that too _on its own exclusive jurisdiction_. All the attributes of sovereignty vested in Congress by the Constitution it impales upon the point of an alleged _implication_. And this is Mr. Clay's peace-offering, to appease the lust of power and the ravenings of state encroachment! A "compromise," forsooth! that sinks the general Government on _its own territory_ into a mere colony, with Virginia and Maryland for its "mother country!" It is refreshing to turn from these shallow, distorted constructions and servile cringings, to the high bearing of other southern men in other times; men, who in their character of legislators and lawyers, disdained to accommodate their interpretations of constitutions and charters to geographical lines, or to bend them to the purposes of a political canvass. In the celebrated case of Cohens vs. the State of Virginia, Hon. William Pinkney, late of Baltimore, and Hon. Walter Jones, of Washington city, with other eminent constitutional lawyers, prepared an elaborate written opinion, from which the following is an extract: "Nor is there any danger to be apprehended from allowing to Congressional legislation with regard to the District of Columbia, its FULLEST EFFECT. Congress is responsible to the States, and to the people for that legislation. It is in truth the legislation of the states over a district placed under their control for _their own benefit_, not for that of the District, except as the prosperity of the District is involved, and necessary to the _general advantage_."--[Life of Pinkney, p. 612.]

The profound legal opinion, from which this is an extract, was elaborated at great length many years since, by a number of the most distinguished lawyers in the United States, whose signatures are appended to it. It is specific and to the point. It asserts, 1st, that Congressional legislation over the District, is "the legislation of the _States_ and the _people_," (not of _two_ states, and a mere _fraction_ of the people;) 2d. "Over a District placed under _their_ control," i.e. under the control of the _whole_ of the States, not under the control of _two twenty-sixths_ of them. 3d. That it was thus put under their Control "_for THEIR OWN benefit_," the benefit of all the States _equally_; not to secure special benefits to Maryland and Virginia, (or what it might be _conjectured_ they would regard as benefits.) 4th. It concludes by asserting that the design of this exclusive control of Congress over the District was "not for the benefit of the _District_," except as that is _connected_ with, and _a means of promoting_ the _general_ advantage. If this is the case with the _District_, which is _directly_ concerned, it is pre-eminently so with Maryland and Virginia, who are but _indirectly_ interested, and would be but remotely affected by it. The argument of Mr. Madison in the Congress of '89, an extract from which has been given on a preceding page, lays down the same principle; that though any matter "_may be a local affair, yet if it involves national EXPENSE OR SAFETY, it becomes of concern to every part of the union, and is a proper subject for the consideration of those charged with the general administration of the government_." Cong. Reg. vol. 1. p. 310, 11.

But these are only the initiatory absurdities of this "good faith _implied_." The thirty-six senators aptly illustrate the principle, that error not only conflicts with truth, but is generally at issue with itself. For if it would be a violation of "good faith" to Maryland and Virginia, for Congress to abolish slavery in the District, it would be _equally_ a violation for Congress to do it _with the consent_, or even at the earnest and unanimous petition of the people of the District: yet for years it has been the southern doctrine, that if the people of the District demand of Congress relief in this respect, it has power, as their local legislature, to grant it, and by abolishing slavery there, carry out the will of the citizens. But now new light has broken in! The optics of the thirty-six have pierced the millstone with a deeper insight, and discoveries thicken faster than they can be telegraphed! Congress has no power, O no, not a modicum, to help the slaveholders of the District, however loudly they may clamor for it. The southern doctrine, that Congress is to the District a mere local Legislature to do its pleasure, is tumbled from the genitive into the vocative! Hard fate--and that too at the hands of those who begat it! The reasonings of Messrs. Pinckney, Wise, and Leigh, are now found to be wholly at fault, and the chanticleer rhetoric of Messrs. Glascock and Garland stalks featherless and crest-fallen. For, Mr. Clay's resolution sweeps by the board all those stereotyped common-places, as "Congress a local Legislature," "consent of the District," "bound to consult the wishes of the District," &c. &c., which for the last two sessions of Congress have served to eke out scanty supplies. It declares, that _as slavery existed in Maryland and Virginia at the time of the cession, and as it still continues in both those states, it could not be abolished in the District without a violation of 'that good faith_,' &c.

But let us see where this principle of the _thirty-six_ will lead us. If "implied faith" to Maryland and Virginia _restrains_ Congress from the abolition of slavery in the District, it _requires_ Congress to do in the District what those states have done within their bounds, i.e., restrain _others_ from abolishing it. Upon the same principle Congress is _bound_, by the doctrine of Mr. Clay's resolution, to _prohibit emancipation_ within the District. There is no _stopping place_ for this plighted "faith." Congress must not only refrain from laying violent hands on slavery, _itself_, and see to it that the slaveholders themselves do not, but it is bound to keep the system up to the Maryland and Virginia standard of vigor!

Again, if the good faith of Congress to Virginia and Maryland requires that slavery should exist in the District, while it exists in those states, it requires that it should exist there _as_ it exists in those states. If to abolish _every_ form of slavery in the District would violate good faith, to abolish _the_ form existing in those states, and to substitute a totally different one, would also violate it. The Congressional "good faith" is to be kept not only with _slavery_, but with the _Maryland and Virginia systems_ of slavery. The faith of those states not being in the preservation of _a_ system, but of _their_ system; otherwise Congress, instead of _sustaining_, would counteract their policy--principles would be brought into action there conflicting with their system, and thus the true spirit of the "implied" pledge would be violated. On this principle, so long as slaves are "chattels personal" in Virginia and Maryland, Congress could not make them _real estate_, inseparable from the soil, as in Louisiana; nor could it permit slaves to read, nor to worship God according to conscience; nor could it grant them trial by jury, nor legalize marriage; nor require the master to give sufficient food and clothing; nor prohibit the violent sundering of families--because such provisions would conflict with the existing slave laws of Virginia and Maryland, and thus violate the "good faith implied," &c. So the principle of the resolution binds Congress in all these particulars: 1st. Not to abolish slavery in the District _until_ Virginia and Maryland abolish. 2d. Not to abolish any _part_ of it that exists in those states. 3d. Not to abolish any _form_ or _appendage_ of it still existing in those states. 4th. _To abolish_ when they do. 5th. To increase or abate its rigors _when, how_, and _as_ the same are modified by those states. In a word, Congressional action in the District is to float passively in the wake of legislative action on the subject in those states.

But here comes a dilemma. Suppose the legislation of those states should steer different courses--then there would be _two_ wakes! Can Congress float in both? Yea, verily! Nothing is too hard for it! Its obsequiousness equals its "power of legislation in _all_ cases whatsoever." It can float _up_ on the Virginia tide, and ebb down on the Maryland at the same time. What Maryland does, Congress will do in the Maryland part. What Virginia does, Congress will do in the Virginia part. Though Congress might not always be able to run at the bidding of both _at once_, especially in different directions, yet if it obeyed orders cheerfully, and "kept in its place," according to its "good faith implied," impossibilities might not be rigidly exacted. True, we have the highest sanction for the maxim that no _man_ can serve two masters--but if "corporations have _no_ souls," analogy would absolve Congress on that score, or at most give it only _a very small soul_--not large enough to be at all in the way, as an _exception_ to the universal rule laid down in the maxim!

In following out the absurdities of this "_implied_ good faith," it will be seen at once that the doctrine of Mr. Clay's Resolution extends to _all the subjects_ of _legislation_ existing in Maryland and Virginia, which exist also within the District. Every system, "institution," law, and established usage there, is placed beyond Congressional control equally with slavery, and by the same "implied faith." The abolition of the lottery system in the District as an _immorality_, was a flagrant breach of this "good faith" to Maryland and Virginia, as the system "still continued in those states." So to abolish imprisonment for debt, and capital punishment, to remodel the bank system, the power of corporations, the militia law, laws of limitation, &c., in the District, _unless Virginia and Maryland took the lead_, would violate the "good faith implied in the cession," &c.

That in the acts of cession no such "good faith" was "implied by Virginia and Maryland" as is claimed in the Resolution, we argue from the fact, that in 1784 Virginia ceded to the United States all her northwest territory, with the special proviso that her citizens inhabiting that territory should "have their _possessions_ and _titles_ confirmed to them, and be _protected_ in the enjoyment of their _rights_ and liberties." (See Journals of Congress, vol. 9, p. 63.) The cession was made in the form of a deed, and signed by Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Hardy, Arthur Lee, and James Monroe. Many of these inhabitants _held slaves_. Three years after the cession, the Virginia delegation in Congress _proposed_ the passage of an ordinance which should abolish slavery, in that territory, and declare that it should never thereafter exist there. All the members of Congress from Virginia and Maryland voted for this ordinance. Suppose some member of Congress had during the passage of the ordinance introduced the following resolution: "Resolved, That when the northwest territory was ceded by Virginia to the United States, domestic slavery existed in that State, including the ceded territory, and as it still continues in that State, it could not be abolished within the territory without a violation of that good faith, which was implied in the cession and in the acceptance of the territory." What would have been the indignant response of Grayson, Griffin, Madison, and the Lees, in the Congress of '87, to such a resolution, and of Carrington, Chairman of the Committee, who reported the ratification of the ordinance in the Congress of '89, and of Page and Parker, who with every other member of the Virginia delegation supported it!

But to enumerate all the absurdities into which the thirty-six Senators have plunged themselves, would be to make a quarto inventory. We decline the task; and in conclusion, merely add that Mr. Clay, in presenting this resolution, and each of the thirty-six Senators who voted for it, entered on the records of the Senate, and proclaimed to the world, a most unworthy accusation against the MILLIONS of American citizens who have during nearly half a century petitioned the national legislature to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia,--charging them either with the ignorance or the impiety of praying the nation to violate its "PLIGHTED FAITH." The resolution virtually indicts at the bar of public opinion, and brands with odium, all the Manumission Societies, the _first_ petitioners for the abolition of slavery in the District, and for a long time the only ones, petitioning from year to year through evil report and good report, still petitioning, by individual societies and in their national conventions.

But as if it were not enough to table the charge against such men as Benjamin Rush, William Rawle, John Sergeant, Robert Vaux, Cadwallader Colden, and Peter A. Jay,--to whom we may add Rufus King, James Hillhouse, William Pinkney, Thomas Addis Emmett, Daniel D. Tompkins, De Witt Clinton, James Kent, and Daniel Webster, besides eleven hundred citizens of the District itself, headed by their Chief Justice and judges--even the sovereign States of Pennsylvania, New-York, Massachusetts, and Vermont, whose legislatures have either memorialized Congress to abolish slavery in the District, or instructed their Senators to move such a measure, must be gravely informed by Messrs. Clay, Norvell, Niles, Smith, Pierce, Benton, Black, Tipton, and other honorable Senators, either that their perception is so dull, they know not what of they affirm, or that their moral sense is so blunted they can demand without compunction a violation of the nation's faith!

We have spoken already of the concessions unwittingly made in this resolution to the true doctrine of Congressional power over the District. For that concession, important as it is, we have small thanks to render. That such a resolution, passed with such an _intent_, and pressing at a thousand points on relations and interests vital to the free states, should be hailed, as it has been, by a portion of the northern press as a "compromise" originating in deference to northern interests, and to be received by us as a free-will offering of disinterested benevolence, demanding our gratitude to the mover,--may well cover us with shame. We deserve the humiliation and have well earned the mockery. Let it come!

If, after having been set up at auction in the public sales-room of the nation, and for thirty years, and by each of a score of "compromises," treacherously knocked off to the lowest bidder, and that without money and without price, the North, plundered and betrayed, _will not_, in this her accepted time, consider the things that belong to her peace before they are hidden from her eyes, then let her eat of the fruit of her own way, and be filled with her own devices! Let the shorn and blinded giant grind in the prison-house of the Philistines, till taught the folly of intrusting to Delilahs the secret and the custody of his strength.