THE ANTI-SLAVERY EXAMINER
NUMBERS [5], [6], [7], [8], [9] & [EXTRA]

Plus [THE CHATTEL PRINCIPLE THE ABHORRENCE OF JESUS CHRIST AND THE APOSTLES; OR NO REFUGE FOR AMERICAN SLAVERY IN THE NEW TESTAMENT]

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THE ANTI-SLAVERY EXAMINER
NO. 5
THE POWER OF CONGRESS
OVER THE
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.

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ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE NEW-YORK EVENING POST,
UNDER THE SIGNATURE OF "WYTHE."

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WITH ADDITIONS BY THE AUTHOR.

FOURTH EDITION.

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NEW YORK: PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY,
No. 143 NASSAU STREET. 1838.

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This No. contains 3-1/2 sheets.--Postage, under 100 miles, 6 cts. over 100, 10 cts.

POWER OF CONGRESS OVER THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.

A civilized community presupposes a government of law. If that government be a republic, its citizens are the sole sources, as well as the subjects of its power. Its constitution is their bill of directions to their own agents--a grant authorizing the exercise of certain powers, and prohibiting that of others. In the Constitution of the United States, whatever else may be obscure, the clause granting power to Congress over the Federal District may well defy misconstruction. Art. 1, Sec. 8, Clause 18: "The Congress shall have power to exercise exclusive legislation, in all cases whatsoever, over such District." Congress may make laws for the District "in all cases," not of all kinds. The grant respects the subjects of legislation, not the moral nature of the laws. The law-making power every where, is subject to moral restrictions, whether limited by constitutions or not. No legislature can authorize murder, nor make honesty penal, nor virtue a crime, nor exact impossibilities. In these and similar respects, the power of Congress is held in check by principles existing in the nature of things, not imposed by the Constitution, but presupposed and assumed by it. The power of Congress over the District is restricted only by those principles that limit ordinary legislation, and, in some respects, it has even wider scope.

In common with the legislatures of the States, Congress cannot constitutionally pass ex post facto laws in criminal cases, nor suspend the writ of habeas corpus, nor pass a bill of attainder, nor abridge the freedom of speech and of the press, nor invade the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, nor enact laws respecting an establishment of religion. These are general limitations. Congress cannot do these things any where. The exact import, therefore, of the clause "in all cases whatsoever," is, on all subjects within the appropriate sphere of legislation. Some legislatures are restrained by constitutions from the exercise of powers strictly within the proper sphere of legislation. Congressional power over the District has no such restraint. It traverses the whole field of legitimate legislation. All the power which any legislature has within its own jurisdiction, Congress holds over the District of Columbia.

It has been asserted that the clause in question respects merely police regulations, and that its sole design was to enable Congress to protect itself against popular tumults. But if the framers of the Constitution aimed to provide for a single case only, why did they provide for "all cases whatsoever?" Besides, this clause was opposed in many of the state conventions, because the grant of power was not restricted to police regulations alone. In the Virginia Convention, George Mason, the father of the Virginia Constitution, said, "This clause gives an unlimited authority in every possible case within the District. He would willingly give them exclusive power as far as respected the police and good government of the place, but he would give them no more." Mr. Grayson said, that control over the police was all-sufficient, and that the "Continental Congress never had an idea of exclusive legislation in all cases." Patrick Henry said. "Is it consistent with any principle of prudence or good policy, to grant unlimited, unbounded authority?" Mr. Madison said in reply: "I did conceive that the clause under consideration was one of those parts which would speak its own praise. When any power is given, its delegation necessarily involves authority to make laws to execute it. * * * * The powers which are found necessary to be given, are therefore delegated generally, and particular and minute specification is left to the legislature. * * * It is not within the limits of human capacity to delineate on paper all those particular cases and circumstances, in which legislation by the general legislature would be necessary." Governor Randolph said: "Holland has no ten miles square, but she has the Hague where the deputies of the States assemble. But the influence which it has given the province of Holland, to have the seat of government within its territory, subject in some respects to its control, has been injurious to the other provinces. The wisdom of the Convention is therefore manifest in granting to Congress exclusive jurisdiction over the place of their session." [Deb. Va. Con., p. 320.] In the forty-third number of the "Federalist," Mr. Madison says: "The indispensable necessity of complete authority at the seat of government, carries its own evidence with it."

Finally, that the grant in question is to be interpreted according to the obvious import of its terms, is proved by the fact, that Virginia proposed an amendment to the United States' Constitution at the time of its adoption, providing that this clause "should be so construed as to give power only over the police and good government of said District," which amendment was rejected.

The former part of the clause under consideration, "Congress shall have power to exercise exclusive legislation," gives sole jurisdiction, and the latter part, "in all cases whatsoever," defines the extent of it. Since, then, Congress is the sole legislature within the District, and since its power is limited only by the checks common to all legislatures, it follows that what the law-making power is intrinsically competent to do any where, Congress is competent to do in the District of Columbia. Having disposed of preliminaries, we proceed to state and argue the real question at issue.

IS THE LAW-MAKING POWER COMPETENT TO ABOLISH SLAVERY WHEN NOT RESTRICTED IN THAT PARTICULAR BY CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS--or, IS THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY WITHIN THE APPROPRIATE SPHERE OF LEGISLATION?

1. In every government, absolute sovereignty exists somewhere. In the United States it exists primarily with the people, and ultimate sovereignty always exists with them. In each of the States, the legislature possesses a representative sovereignty, delegated by the people through the Constitution--the people thus committing to the legislature a portion of their sovereignty, and specifying in their constitutions the amount of the grant and its conditions. That the people in any state where slavery exists, have the power to abolish it, none will deny. If the legislature have not the power, it is because the people have reserved it to themselves. Had they lodged with the legislature "power to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever," they would have parted with their sovereignty over the legislation of the State, and so far forth, the legislature would have become the people, clothed with all their functions, and as such competent, during the continuance of the grant, to do whatever the people might have done before the surrender of their power: consequently, they would have the power to abolish slavery. The sovereignty of the District of Columbia exists somewhere--where is it lodged? The citizens of the District have no legislature of their own, no representation in Congress, and no political power whatever. Maryland and Virginia have surrendered to the United States their "full and absolute right and entire sovereignty," and the people of the United States have committed to Congress by the Constitution, the power to "exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over such District."

Thus, the sovereignty of the District of Columbia, is shown to reside solely in the Congress of the United States; and since the power of the people of a state to abolish slavery within their own limits, results from their entire sovereignty within that state, so the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District, results from its entire sovereignty within the District. If it be objected that Congress can have no more power over the District, than was held by the legislatures of Maryland and Virginia, we ask what clause of the constitution graduates the power of Congress by the standard of those legislatures? Was the United States' constitution worked into its present shape under the measuring line and square of Virginia and Maryland? and is its power to be bevelled down till it can run in the grooves of state legislation? There is a deal of prating about constitutional power over the District, as though Congress were indebted for it to Maryland and Virginia. The powers of those states, whether prodigies or nullities, have nothing to do with the question. As well thrust in the powers of the Grand Lama to join issue upon, or twist papal bulls into constitutional tether, with which to curb congressional action. THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES gives power to Congress, and takes it away, and it alone. Maryland and Virginia adopted the Constitution before they ceded to the United States the territory of the District. By their acts of cession, they abdicated their own sovereignty over the District, and thus made room for that provided by the United States' constitution, which sovereignty was to commence as soon as a cession of territory by states, and its acceptance by Congress, furnished a sphere for its exercise. That the abolition of slavery is within the sphere of legislation, I argue.

2. FROM THE FACT, THAT SLAVERY, AS A LEGAL SYSTEM, IS THE CREATURE OF LEGISLATION. The law, by creating slavery, not only affirmed its existence to be within the sphere and under the control of legislation, but also, the conditions and terms of its existence, and the question whether or not it should exist. Of course legislation would not travel out of its sphere, in abolishing what is within it, and what had been recognized to be within it, by its own act. Cannot legislatures repeal their own laws? If law can take from a man his rights, it can give them back again. If it can say, "your body belongs to your neighbor," it can say, "it belongs to yourself." If it can annul a man's right to himself, held by express grant from his Maker, and can create for another an artificial title to him, can it not annul the artificial title, and leave the original owner to hold himself by his original title?

3. THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY HAS ALWAYS BEEN CONSIDERED WITHIN THE APPROPRIATE SPHERE OF LEGISLATION. Almost every civilized nation has abolished slavery by law. The history of legislation since the revival of letters, is a record crowded with testimony to the universally admitted competency of the law-making power to abolish slavery. It is so manifestly an attribute not merely of absolute sovereignty, but even of ordinary legislation, that the competency of a legislature to exercise it, may well nigh be reckoned among the legal axioms of the civilized world. Even the night of the dark ages was not dark enough to make this invisible.

The Abolition decree of the great council of England was passed in 1102. The memorable Irish decree, "that all the English slaves in the whole of Ireland, be immediately emancipated and restored to their former liberty," was issued in 1171. Slavery in England was abolished by a general charter of emancipation in 1381. Passing over many instances of the abolition of slavery by law, both during the middle ages and since the reformation, we find them multiplying as we approach our own times. In 1776 slavery was abolished in Prussia by special edict. In St. Domingo, Cayenne, Guadaloupe, and Martinique, in 1794, where more than 600,000 slaves were emancipated by the French government. In Java, 1811; in Ceylon, 1815; in Buenos Ayres, 1816; in St. Helena, 1819; in Colombia, 1821; by the Congress of Chili in 1821; in Cape Colony, 1823; in Malacca, 1825; in the southern provinces of Birmah, 1826; in Bolivia, 1826; in Peru, Guatemala, and Monte Video, 1828; in Jamaica, Barbados, the Bermudas, the Bahamas, Anguilla, Mauritius, St. Christopers, Nevis, the Virgin Islands, (British), Antigua, Montserrat, Dominica, St. Vincents, Grenada, Berbice, Tobago, St. Lucia, Trinidad, Honduras, Demerara, Essequibo and the Cape of Good Hope, on the 1st of August, 1834. But waving details, suffice it to say, that England, France, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Russia, Austria, Prussia, and Germany, have all and often given their testimony to the competency of the legislative power to abolish slavery. In our own country, the Legislature of Pennsylvania passed an act of abolition in 1780, Connecticut in 1784; Rhode Island, 1784; New-York, 1799; New-Jersey, in 1804; Vermont, by Constitution, in 1777; Massachusetts, in 1780; and New-Hampshire, in 1784.

When the competency of the law-making power to abolish slavery has thus been recognized every where and for ages, when it has been embodied in the highest precedents, and celebrated in the thousand jubilees of regenerated liberty, is it an achievement of modern discovery, that such a power is a nullity?--that all these acts of abolition are void, and that the millions disenthralled by them, are, either themselves or their posterity, still legally in bondage?

4. LEGISLATIVE POWER HAS ABOLISHED SLAVERS IN ITS PARTS. The law of South Carolina prohibits the working of slaves more than fifteen hours in the twenty-four. In other words, it takes from the slaveholder his power over nine hours of the slave's time daily; and if it can take nine hours it may take twenty-four. The laws of Georgia prohibit the working of slaves on the first day of the week; and if they can do it for the first, they can for the six following. The law of North Carolina prohibits the "immoderate" correction of slaves. If it has power to prohibit immoderate correction, it can prohibit moderate correction--all correction, which would be virtual emancipation; for, take from the master the power to inflict pain, and he is master no longer. Cease to ply the slave with the stimulus of fear, and he is free.

The Constitution of Mississippi gives the General Assembly power to make laws "to oblige the owners of slaves to treat them with humanity." The Constitution of Missouri has the same clause, and an additional one making it the DUTY of the legislature to pass such laws as may be necessary to secure the humane treatment of the slaves. This grant to those legislatures, empowers them to decide what is and what is not "humane treatment." Otherwise it gives no "power"--the clause is mere waste paper, and flouts in the face of a befooled legislature. A clause giving power to require "humane treatment" covers all the particulars of such treatment--gives power to exact it in all respects--requiring certain acts, and prohibiting others--maiming, branding, chaining together, separating families, floggings for learning the alphabet, for reading the Bible, for worshiping God according to conscience--the legislature has power to specify each of these acts--declare that it is not "humane treatment," and PROHIBIT it.--The legislature may also believe that driving men and women into the field, and forcing them to work without pay, is not "humane treatment," and being constitutionally bound "to oblige" masters to practise "humane treatment"--they have the power to prohibit such treatment, and are bound to do it.

The law of Louisiana makes slaves real estate, prohibiting the holder, if he be also a land holder, to separate them from the soil.[[A]] If it has power to prohibit the sale without the soil, it can prohibit the sale with it; and if it can prohibit the sale as property, it can prohibit the holding as property. Similar laws exist in the French, Spanish, and Portuguese colonies. The law of Louisiana requires the master to give his slaves a certain amount of food and clothing. If it can oblige the master to give the slave one thing, it can oblige him to give him another: if food and clothing, then wages, liberty, his own body. By the laws of Connecticut, slaves may receive and hold property, and prosecute suits in their own name as plaintiffs: [This last was also the law of Virginia in 1795. See Tucker's "Dissertation on Slavery," p. 73.] There were also laws making marriage contracts legal, in certain contingencies, and punishing infringements of them, ["Reeve's Law of Baron and Femme," p. 340-1.]

[Footnote [A]: Virginia made slaves real estate by a law passed in 1705. (Beverly's Hist. of Va., p. 98.) I do not find the precise time when this law was repealed, probably when Virginia became the chief slave breeder for the cotton-growing and sugar-planting country, and made young men and women "from fifteen to twenty-five" the main staple production of the State.]

Each of the laws enumerated above, does, in principle, abolish slavery; and all of them together abolish it in fact. True, not as a whole, and at a stroke, nor all in one place; but in its parts, by piecemeal, at divers times and places; thus showing that the abolition of slavery is within the boundary of legislation.

In the "Washington (D.C.) City Laws," page 138, is "AN ACT to prevent horses from being cruelly beaten or abused." Similar laws have been passed by corporations in many of the slave states, and throughout the civilized world, such acts are punishable either as violations of common law or of legislative enactments. If a legislature can pass laws "to prevent horses from being cruelly abused," it can pass laws to prevent men from being cruelly abused, and if it can prevent cruel abuse, it can define what it is. It can declare that to make men work without pay is cruel abuse, and can PROHIBIT it.

5. THE COMPETENCY OF THE LAW-MAKING POWER TO ABOLISH SLAVERY, HAS BEEN RECOGNIZED BY ALL THE SLAVEHOLDING STATES, EITHER DIRECTLY OR BY IMPLICATION. Some States recognize it in their Constitutions, by giving the legislature power to emancipate such slaves as may "have rendered the state some distinguished service," and others by express prohibitory restrictions. The Constitution of Mississippi, Arkansas, and other States, restrict the power of the legislature in this respect. Why this express prohibition, if the law-making power cannot abolish slavery? A stately farce indeed, with appropriate rites to induct into the Constitution a special clause, for the express purpose of restricting a nonentity!--to take from the law-making power what it never had, and what cannot pertain to it! The legislatures of those States have no power to abolish slavery, simply because their Constitutions have expressly taken away that power. The people of Arkansas, Mississippi, &c. well knew the competency of the law-making power to abolish slavery, and hence their zeal to restrict it.

The slaveholding States have recognised this power in their laws. Virginia passed a law in 1786 to prevent the importation of Slaves, of which the following is an extract: "And be it further enacted that every slave imported into this commonwealth contrary to the true intent and meaning of this act, shall upon such importation become free." By a law of Virginia, passed Dec. 17, 1792, a slave brought into the state and kept there a year, was free. The Maryland Court of Appeals, Dec., 1813 [case of Stewart vs. Oakes,] decided that a slave owned in Maryland, and sent by his master into Virginia to work at different periods, making one year in the whole, became free, being emancipated by the above law. North Carolina and Georgia in their acts of cession, transferring to the United States the territory now constituting the States of Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi, made it a condition of the grant, that the provisions of the ordinance of '87 should be secured to the inhabitants, with the exception of the sixth article which prohibits slavery; thus conceding, both the competency of law to abolish slavery, and the power of Congress to do it, within its jurisdiction. (These acts show the prevalent belief at that time, in the slaveholding States, that the general government had adopted a line of policy aiming at the exclusion of slavery from the entire territory of the United States, not included within the original States, and that this policy would be pursued unless prevented by specific and formal stipulation.)

Slaveholding States have asserted this power in their judicial decisions. In numerous cases their highest courts have decided that if the legal owner of slaves takes them into those States where slavery has been abolished either by law or by the constitution, such removal emancipates them, such law or constitution abolishing their slavery. This principle is asserted in the decision of the Supreme Court of Louisiana, Lunsford vs. Coquillon, 14 Martin's La. Reps. 401. Also by the Supreme Court of Virginia, Hunter vs. Fulcher, 1 Leigh's Reps. 172. The same doctrine was laid down by Judge Washington, of the U. S. Sup. Court, Butler vs. Hopper, Washington's C. C. Reps. 508; also, by the Court of Appeals in Kentucky, Rankin vs. Lydia, 2 Marshall's Reps. 407; see also, Wilson vs. Isbell, 5 Call's Reps. 425, Spotts vs. Gillespie, 6 Randolph's Reps. 566. The State vs. Lasselle, 1 Blackford's Reps. 60, Marie Louise vs. Mariot, 8 La. Reps. 475. In this case, which was tried in 1836, the slave had been taken by her master to France and brought back; Judge Matthews, of the Supreme Court of Louisiana, decided that "residence for one moment" under the laws of France emancipated her.

6. EMINENT STATESMEN, THEMSELVES SLAVEHOLDERS, HAVE CONCEDED THIS POWER. Washington, in a letter to Robert Morris, April 12, 1786, says: "There is not a man living, who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of slavery; but there is only one proper and effectual mode by which it can be accomplished, and that is by legislative authority." In a letter to Lafayette, May 10, 1786, he says: "It (the abolition of slavery) certainly might, and assuredly ought to be effected, and that too by legislative authority." In a letter to John Fenton Mercer, Sept. 9, 1786, he says: "It is among my first wishes to see some plan adopted by which slavery in this country may be abolished by law." In a letter to Sir John Sinclair, he says: "There are in Pennsylvania, laws for the gradual abolition of slavery, which neither Maryland nor Virginia have at present, but which nothing is more certain than that they must have, and at a period not remote." Jefferson, speaking of movements in the Virginia Legislature in 1777, for the passage of a law emancipating the slaves, says: "The principles of the amendment were agreed on, that is to say, the freedom of all born after a certain day; but it was found that the public mind would not bear the proposition, yet the day is not far distant when it must bear and adopt it."--Jefferson's Memoirs, v. i. p. 35. It is well known that Jefferson, Pendleton, Mason, Wythe and Lee, while acting as a committee of the Virginia House of Delegates to revise the State Laws, prepared a plan for the gradual emancipation of the slaves by law. These men were the great lights of Virginia. Mason, the author of the Virginia Constitution; Pendleton, the President of the memorable Virginia Convention in 1787, and President of the Virginia Court of Appeals; Wythe was the Blackstone of the Virginia bench, for a quarter of a century Chancellor of the State, the professor of law in the University of William and Mary, and the preceptor of Jefferson, Madison, and Chief Justice Marshall. He was the author of the celebrated remonstrance to the English House of Commons on the subject of the stamp act. As to Jefferson, his name is his biography.

Every slaveholding member of Congress from the States of Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia, voted for the celebrated ordinance of 1787, which abolished the slavery then existing in the Northwest Territory. Patrick Henry, in his well known letter to Robert Pleasants, of Virginia, January 18, 1773, says: "I believe a time will come when an opportunity will be offered to abolish this lamentable evil." William Pinkney, of Maryland, advocated the abolition of slavery by law, in the legislature of that State, in 1789. Luther Martin urged the same measure both in the Federal Convention, and in his report to the Legislature of Maryland. In 1796, St. George Tucker, of Virginia, professor of law in the University of William and Mary, and Judge of the General Court, published a dissertation on slavery, urging the abolition of slavery by law.

John Jay, while New-York was yet a slave State, and himself in law a slaveholder, said in a letter from Spain, in 1786, "An excellent law might be made out of the Pennsylvania one, for the gradual abolition of slavery. Were I in your legislature, I would present a bill for the purpose, and I would never cease moving it till it became a law, or I ceased to be a member."

Governor Tompkins, in a message to the Legislature of New-York, January 8, 1812, said: "To devise the means for the gradual and ultimate extermination from amongst us of slavery, is a work worthy the representatives of a polished and enlightened nation."

The Virginia Legislature asserted this power in 1832. At the close of a month's debate, the following proceedings were had. I extract from an editorial article in the Richmond Whig, Jan. 26, 1832.

"The report of the Select Committee, adverse to legislation on the subject of Abolition, was in these words: Resolved, as the opinion of this Committee, that it is INEXPEDIENT FOR THE PRESENT, to make any legislative enactments for the abolition of slavery." This Report Mr. Preston moved to reverse, and thus to declare that it was expedient, now to make legislative enactments for the abolition of slavery. This was meeting the question in its strongest form. It demanded action, and immediate action. On this proposition the vote was 58 to 73. Many of the most decided friends of abolition voted against the amendment, because they thought public opinion not sufficiently prepared for it, and that it might prejudice the cause to move too rapidly. The vote on Mr. Witcher's motion to postpone the whole subject indefinitely, indicates the true state of opinion in the House. That was the test question, and was so intended and proclaimed by its mover. That motion was negatived, 71 to 60; showing a majority of 11, who by that vote, declared their belief that at the proper time, and in the proper mode, Virginia ought to commence a system of gradual abolition.

7. THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES HAVE ASSERTED THIS POWER. The ordinance of '87, declaring that there should be "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude," in the North Western Territory, abolished the slavery then existing there. The Sup. Court of Mississippi, [Harvey vs. Decker, Walker's Mi. Reps. 36,] declared that the ordinance of '87 emancipated the slaves then held there. In this decision the question is argued ably and at great length. The Supreme Court of La. made the same decision in the case of Forsyth vs. Nash, 4 Martin's La. Reps. 385. The same doctrine was laid down by Judge Porter, (late United States Senator from La.,) in his decision at the March term of the La. Supreme Court, 1830, Merry vs. Chexnaider, 20 Martin's Reps. 699.

That the ordinance abolished the slavery then existing there is also shown by the fact, that persons holding slaves in the territory petitioned for the repeal of the article abolishing slavery, assigning that as a reason. "The petition of the citizens of Randolph and St. Clair counties in the Illinois country, stating that they were in possession of slaves, and praying the repeal of that act (the 6th article of the ordinance of '87) and the passage of a law legalizing slavery there." [Am. State papers, Public Lands, v. 1. p. 69.] Congress passed this ordinance before the United States' Constitution was adopted, when it derived all its authority from the articles of Confederation, which conferred powers of legislation far more restricted than those committed to Congress over the District and Territories by the United States' Constitution. Now, we ask, how does the Constitution abridge the powers which Congress possessed under the articles of confederation?

The abolition of the slave trade by Congress, in 1808, is another illustration of the competency of legislative power to abolish slavery. The African slave trade has become such a mere technic, in common parlance, that the fact of its being proper slavery is overlooked. The buying and selling, the transportation, and the horrors of the middle passage, were mere incidents of the slavery in which the victims were held. Let things be called by their own names. When Congress abolished the African slave trade, it abolished SLAVERY--supreme slavery--power frantic with license, trampling a whole hemisphere scathed with its fires, and running down with blood. True, Congress did not, in the abolition of the slave trade, abolish all the slavery within its jurisdiction, but it did abolish all the slavery in one part of its jurisdiction. What has rifled it of power to abolish slavery in another part of its jurisdiction, especially in that part where it has "exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever?"

8. THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES RECOGNIZES THIS POWER BY THE MOST CONCLUSIVE IMPLICATION. In Art. 1, sec. 3, clause 1, it prohibits the abolition of the slave trade previous to 1808: thus implying the power of Congress to do it at once, but for the restriction; and its power to do it unconditionally, when that restriction ceased. Again; In Art. 4, sec. 2, "No person held to service or labor in one state under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from said service or labor." This clause was inserted, as all admit, to prevent the runaway slave from being emancipated by the laws of the free states. If these laws had no power to emancipate, why this constitutional guard to prevent it?

The insertion of the clause, was the testimony of the eminent jurists that framed the Constitution, to the existence of the power, and their public proclamation, that the abolition of slavery was within the appropriate sphere of legislation. The right of the owner to that which is rightfully property, is founded on a principle of universal law, and is recognized and protected by all civilized nations; property in slaves is, by general consent, an exception; hence slaveholders insisted upon the insertion of this clause in the United States' Constitution, that they might secure by an express provision, that from which protection is withheld, by the acknowledged principles of universal law.[[A]] By demanding this provision, slaveholders consented that their slaves should not be recognized as property by the United States' Constitution, and hence they found their claim, on the fact of their being "persons, and held to service."

[Footnote [A]: The fact, that under the articles of Confederation, slaveholders, whose slaves had escaped into free states, had no legal power to force them back,--that now they have no power to recover, by process of law, their slaves who escape to Canada, the South American States, or to Europe--the case already cited, in which the Supreme Court of Louisiana decided, that residence "for one moment," under the laws of France emancipated an American slave--the case of Fulton, vs. Lewis, 3 Har. and John's Reps., 56, where the slave of a St. Domingo slaveholder, who brought him to Maryland in '93, was pronounced free by the Maryland Court of Appeals--are illustrations of the acknowledged truth here asserted, that by the consent of the civilized world, and on the principles of universal law, slaves are not "property," and that whenever held as property under law, it is only by positive legislative acts, forcibly setting aside the law of nature, the common law, and the principles of universal justice and right between man and man,--principles paramount to all law, and from which alone, law derives its intrinsic authoritative sanction.]

9. CONGRESS HAS UNQUESTIONABLE POWER TO ADOPT THE COMMON LAW, AS THE LEGAL SYSTEM, WITHIN ITS EXCLUSIVE JURISDICTION.--This has been done, with certain restrictions, in most of the States, either by legislative acts or by constitutional implication. THE COMMON LAW KNOWS NO SLAVES. Its principles annihilate slavery wherever they touch it. It is a universal, unconditional, abolition act. Wherever slavery is a legal system, it is so only by statute law, and in violation of the common law. The declaration of Lord Chief Justice Holt, that, "by the common law, no man can have property in another," is an acknowledged axiom, and based upon the well known common law definition of property. "The subjects of dominion or property are things, as contra-distinguished from persons." Let Congress adopt the common law in the District of Columbia, and slavery there is abolished. Congress may well be at home in common law legislation, for the common law is the grand element of the United States' Constitution. All its fundamental provisions are instinct with its spirit; and its existence, principles, and paramount authority, are presupposed and assumed throughout the whole. The preamble of the Constitution plants the standard of the Common Law immovably in its foreground. "We, the people of the United States, in order to ESTABLISH JUSTICE, &c., do ordain and establish this Constitution;" thus proclaiming devotion to JUSTICE, as the controlling motive in the organization of the Government, and its secure establishment the chief object of its aims. By this most solemn recognition, the common law, that grand legal embodyment of "justice" and fundamental right--was made the groundwork of the Constitution, and intrenched behind its strongest munitions. The second clause of Sec. 9, Art. 1; Sec. 4, Art. 2, and the last clause of Sec. 2, Art. 3, with Articles 7, 8, 9, and 13 of the Amendments, are also express recognitions of the common law as the presiding Genius of the Constitution.

By adopting the common law within its exclusive jurisdiction Congress would carry out the principles of our glorious Declaration, and follow the highest precedents in our national history and jurisprudence. It is a political maxim as old as civil legislation, that laws should be strictly homogeneous with the principles of the government whose will they express, embodying and carrying them out--being indeed the principles themselves, in preceptive form--representatives alike of the nature and power of the Government--standing illustrations of its genius and spirit, while they proclaim and enforce its authority. Who needs be told that slavery makes war upon the principles of the Declaration, and the spirit of the Constitution, and that these and the principles of the common law gravitate towards each other with irrepressible affinities, and mingle into one? The common law came hither with our pilgrim fathers; it was their birthright, their panoply, their glory, and their song of rejoicing in the house of their pilgrimage. It covered them in the day of their calamity, and their trust was under the shadow of its wings. From the first settlement of the country, the genius of our institutions and our national spirit have claimed it as a common possession, and exulted in it with a common pride. A century ago, Governor Pownall, one of the most eminent constitutional jurists of colonial times, said of the common law, "In all the colonies the common law is received as the foundation and main body of their law." In the Declaration of Rights, made by the Continental Congress at its first session in '74, there was the following resolution: "Resolved, That the respective colonies are entitled to the common law of England, and especially to the great and inestimable privilege of being tried by their peers of the vicinage according to the course of that law." Soon after the organization of the general government, Chief Justice Ellsworth, in one of his decisions on the bench of the U. S. Sup. Court, said: "The common law of this country remains the same as it was before the revolution." Chief Justice Marshall, in his decision in the case of Livingston vs. Jefferson, said: "When our ancestors migrated to America, they brought with them the common law of their native country, so far as it was applicable to their new situation, and I do not conceive that the revolution in any degree changed the relations of man to man, or the law which regulates them. In breaking our political connection with the parent state, we did not break our connection with each other." [Hall's Law Journal, new series.] Mr. Duponceau, in his "Dissertation on the Jurisdiction of Courts in the United States," says, "I consider the common law of England the jus commune of the United States. I think I can lay it down as a correct principle, that the common law of England, as it was at the time of the Declaration of Independence, still continues to be the national law of this country, so far as it is applicable to our present state, and subject to the modifications it has received here in the course of nearly half a century." Chief Justice Taylor of North Carolina, in his decision in the case of the State vs. Reed, in 1823, Hawkes' N.C. Reps. 454, says, "a law of paramount, obligation to the statute, was violated by the offence--COMMON LAW, founded upon the law of nature, and confirmed by revelation." The legislation of the United States abounds in recognitions of the principles of the common law, asserting their paramount binding power. Sparing details, of which our national state papers are full, we illustrate by a single instance. It was made a condition of the admission of Louisiana into the Union, that the right of trial by jury should be secured to all her citizens,--the United States government thus employing its power to enlarge the jurisdiction of the common law in this its great representative.

Having shown that the abolition of slavery is within the competency of the law-making power, when unrestricted by constitutional provisions, and that the legislation of Congress over the District is thus unrestricted, its power to abolish slavery there is established. We argue it further, from the fact that,

10. SLAVERY NOW EXISTS IN THE DISTRICT BY AN ACT OF CONGRESS. In the act of 16th July, 1790, Congress accepted portions of territory offered by the states of Maryland and Virginia, and enacted that the laws, as they then were, should continue in force, "until Congress shall otherwise by law provide." Under these laws, adopted by Congress, and in effect re-enacted and made laws of the District, the slaves there are now held.

Is Congress so impotent in its own "exclusive jurisdiction" that it cannot "otherwise by law provide?" If it can say, what shall be considered property, it can say what shall not be considered property. Suppose a legislature should enact that marriage contracts should be mere bills of sale, making a husband the proprietor of his wife, as his bona fide property; and suppose husbands should herd their wives in droves for the market as beasts of burden, or for the brothel as victims of lust, and then prate about their inviolable legal property, and deny the power of the legislature, which stamped them "property," to undo its own wrong, and secure to wives by law the rights of human beings. Would such cant about "legal rights" be heeded where reason and justice held sway, and where law, based upon fundamental morality, received homage? If a frantic legislature pronounces woman a chattel, has it no power, with returning reason, to take back the blasphemy? Is the impious edict irrepealable? Be it, that with legal forms it has stamped wives "wares." Can no legislation blot out the brand? Must the handwriting of Deity on human nature be expunged for ever? Has LAW no power to stay the erasing pen, and tear off the scrawled label that covers up the IMAGE OF GOD?

II. THE POWER OF CONGRESS TO ABOLISH SLAVERY IN THE DISTRICT HAS BEEN, TILL RECENTLY, UNIVERSALLY CONCEDED.

1. It has been assumed by Congress itself. The following record stands on the journals of the House of Representatives for 1804, p. 225: "On motion made and seconded that the House do come to the following resolution: 'Resolved, That from and after the 4th day of July, 1805, all blacks and people of color that shall be born within the District of Columbia, or whose mothers shall be the property of any person residing within the said District, shall be free, the males at the age of ----, and the females at the age of ----. The main question being taken that the House do agree to said motions as originally proposed, it was negatived by a majority of 46.'" Though the motion was lost, it was on the ground of its alleged inexpediency alone. In the debate which preceded the vote, the power of Congress was conceded. In March, 1816, the House of Representatives passed the following resolution: "Resolved, That a committee be appointed to inquire into the existence of an inhuman and illegal traffic in slaves, carried on in and through the District of Columbia, and to report whether any and what measures are necessary for putting a stop to the same."

On the 9th of January, 1829, the House of Representatives passed the following resolution by a vote of 114 to 66: "Resolved, That the Committee on the District of Columbia, be instructed to inquire into the expediency of providing by law for the gradual abolition of slavery within the District, in such a manner that the interests of no individual shall be injured thereby." Among those who voted in the affirmative were Messrs. Barney of Md., Armstrong of Va., A.H. Shepperd of N.C., Blair of Tenn., Chilton and Lyon of Ky., Johns of Del., and others from slave states.

2. IT HAS BEEN CONCEDED BY COMMITTEES OF CONGRESS, ON THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.--In a report of the committee on the District, Jan. 11, 1837, by their chairman, Mr. Powell of Va., there is the following declaration: "The Congress of the United States, has by the constitution exclusive jurisdiction over the District, and has power upon this subject (slavery,) as upon all other subjects of legislation, to exercise unlimited discretion." Reports of Comms. 2d Sess. 19th Cong. v. iv. No. 43. In December, 1831, the committee on the District, Mr. Doddridge of Va., Chairman, reported, "That until the adjoining states act on the subject, (slavery) it would be (not unconstitutional but) unwise and impolitic, if not unjust, for Congress to interfere." In April, 1836, a special committee on abolition memorials reported the following resolutions by their Chairman, Mr. Pinckney of South Carolina: "Resolved, That Congress possesses no constitutional authority to interfere in any way with the institution of slavery in any of the states of this confederacy."

"Resolved, That Congress ought not to interfere in any way with slavery in the District of Columbia." "Ought not to interfere," carefully avoiding the phraseology of the first resolution, and thus in effect conceding the constitutional power. In a widely circulated "Address to the electors of the Charleston District," Mr. Pinkney is thus denounced by his own constituents: "He has proposed a resolution which is received by the plain common sense of the whole country as a concession that Congress has authority to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia."

3. IT HAS BEEN CONCEDED BY THE CITIZENS OF THE DISTRICT. A petition for the gradual abolition of slavery in the District, signed by nearly eleven hundred of its citizens, was presented to Congress, March 24, 1827. Among the signers to this petition, were Chief Justice Cranch, Judge Van Ness, Judge Morsel, Prof. J.M. Staughton, and a large number of the most influential inhabitants of the District. Mr. Dickson, of New York, asserted on the floor of Congress in 1835, that the signers to this petition owned more than half the property in the District. The accuracy of this statement has never been questioned.

THIS POWER HAS BEEN CONCEDED BY GRAND JURIES OF THE DISTRICT. The grand jury of the county of Alexandria, at the March term, 1802, presented the domestic slaves trade as a grievance, and said, "We consider these grievances demanding legislative redress." Jan. 19, 1829, Mr. Alexander, of Virginia, presented a representation of the grand jury in the city of Washington, remonstrating against "any measure for the abolition of slavery within said District, unless accompanied by measures for the removal of the emancipated from the same;" thus, not only conceding the power to emancipate slaves, but affirming an additional power, that of excluding them when free. Journal H. R. 1828-9, p. 174.

4. THIS POWER HAS BEEN CONCEDED BY STATE LEGISLATURES. In 1828 the Legislature of Pennsylvania instructed their Senators in Congress "to procure, if practicable, the passage of a law to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia." Jan. 28, 1829, the House of Assembly of New York passed a resolution, that their "Senators in Congress be instructed to make every possible exertion to effect the passage of a law for the abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia." In February, 1837, the Senate of Massachusetts "Resolved, That Congress having exclusive legislation in the District of Columbia, possess the right to abolish slavery and the slave trade therein." The House of Representatives passed the following resolution at the same session: "Resolved, That Congress having exclusive legislation in the District of Columbia, possess the right to abolish slavery in said District." November 1, 1837, the Legislature of Vermont, "Resolved that Congress have the full power by the constitution to abolish slavery and the slave trade in the District of Columbia, and in the territories."

In May, 1838, the Legislature of Connecticut passed a resolution asserting the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia.

In January, 1836, the Legislature of South Carolina "Resolved, That we should consider the abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia as a violation of the rights of the citizens of that District derived from the implied conditions on which that territory was ceded to the General Government." Instead of denying the constitutional power, they virtually admit its existence, by striving to smother it under an implication. In February, 1836, the Legislature of North Carolina "Resolved, That, although by the Constitution all legislative power over the District of Columbia is vested in the Congress of the United States, yet we would deprecate any legislative action on the part of that body towards liberating the slaves of that District, as a breach of faith towards those States by whom the territory was originally ceded. Here is a full concession of the power. February 2, 1836, the Virginia Legislature passed unanimously the following resolution: "Resolved, by the General Assembly of Virginia, that the following article be proposed to the several states of this Union, and to Congress, as an amendment of the Constitution of the United States:" "The powers of Congress shall not be so construed as to authorize the passage of any law for the emancipation of slaves in the District of Columbia, without the consent of the individual proprietors thereof, unless by the sanction of the Legislatures of Virginia and Maryland, and under such conditions as they shall by law prescribe."

Fifty years after the formation of the United States' constitution the states are solemnly called upon by the Virginia Legislature, to amend that instrument by a clause asserting that, in the grant to Congress of "exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever" over the District, the "case" of slavery is not included!! What could have dictated such a resolution but the conviction that the power to abolish slavery is an irresistible inference from the constitution as it is? The fact that the same legislature, passed afterward a resolution, though by no means unanimously, that Congress does not possess the power, abates not a title of the testimony in the first resolution. March 23d, 1824, "Mr. Brown presented the resolutions of the General Assembly of Ohio, recommending to Congress the consideration of a system for the gradual emancipation of persons of color held in servitude in the United States." On the same day, "Mr. Noble, of Indiana, communicated a resolution from the legislature of that state, respecting the gradual emancipation of slaves within the United States." Journal of the United States' Senate, for 1824-5, p.231.

The Ohio and Indiana resolutions, by taking for granted the general power of Congress over the subject of slavery, do virtually assert its special power within its exclusive jurisdiction.

5. THIS POWER HAS BEEN CONCEDED BY BODIES OF CITIZENS IN THE SLAVE STATES. The petition of eleven hundred citizens of the District, has been already mentioned. "March 5,1830, Mr. Washington presented a memorial of inhabitants of the county of Frederick, in the state of Maryland, praying that provision be made for the gradual abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia." Journal H.R. 1829-30, p. 358.

March 30, 1828. Mr. A.H. Shepperd, of North Carolina, presented a memorial of citizens of that state, "praying Congress to take measures for the entire abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia." Journal H.R. 1829-30, p. 379.

January 14, 1822. Mr. Rhea, of Tennessee, presented a memorial of citizens of that state, praying that "provision may be made, whereby all slaves that may hereafter be born in the District of Columbia, shall be free at a certain period of their lives." Journal H.R. 1821-22, p.142.

December 13, 1824. Mr. Saunders of North Carolina, presented a memorial of the citizens of that state, praying "that measures may be taken for the gradual abolition of slavery in the United States." Journal H.R. 1824-25, p.27.

December 16, 1828. "Mr. Barnard presented the memorial of the American Convention for promoting the abolition of slavery, held in Baltimore, praying that slavery may be abolished in the District of Columbia." Journal U.S. Senate, 1828-29, p.24.

6. DISTINGUISHED STATESMEN AND JURISTS IN THE SLAVEHOLDING STATES, HAVE CONCEDED THIS POWER. The testimony Of Messrs. Doddridge, and Powell, of Virginia, Chief Justice Cranch, and Judges Morsel and Van Ness, of the District, has already been given. In the debate in Congress on the memorial of the Society of Friends, in 1790, Mr. Madison, in speaking of the territories of the United States, explicitly declared, from his own knowledge of the views of the members of the convention that framed the constitution, as well as from the obvious import of its terms, that in the territories, "Congress have certainly the power to regulate the subject of slavery." Congress can have no more power over the territories than that of "exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever," consequently, according to Mr. Madison, "it has certainly the power to regulate the subject of slavery in the" District. In March, 1816, Mr. Randolph of Virginia, introduced a resolution for putting a stop to the domestic slave trade within the District. December 12, 1827, Mr. Barney, of Maryland, presented a memorial for abolition in the District, and moved that it be printed. Mr. McDuffie, of S.C., objected to the printing, but "expressly admitted the right of Congress to grant to the people of the District any measure which they might deem necessary to free themselves from the deplorable evil."--[See letter of Mr. Claiborne of Miss. to his constituents published in the Washington Globe, May 9, 1836.] The sentiments of Mr. Clay of Kentucky, on the subject are well known. In a speech before the U.S. Senate, in 1836, he declared the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District "unquestionable." Messrs. Blair, of Tennessee, and Chilton, Lyon, and R.M. Johnson, of Kentucky, A.H. Shepperd, of N.C., Messrs. Armstrong and Smyth of Va., Messrs. Dorsey, Archer, and Barney, of Md., and Johns, of Del., with numerous others from slave states have asserted the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District. In the speech of Mr. Smyth, of Virginia, on the Missouri question, January 28, 1820, he says on this point: "If the future freedom of the blacks is your real object, and not a mere pretence, why do you begin here? Within the ten miles square, you have undoubted power to exercise exclusive legislation. Produce a bill to emancipate the slaves in the District of Columbia, or, if you prefer it, to emancipate those born hereafter."

To this may be added the testimony of the present Vice President of the United States, Hon. Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky. In a speech before the U.S. Senate, February 1, 1820, (National Intelligencer, April 29, 1829,) he says: "In the District of Columbia, containing a population of 30,000 souls, and probably as many slaves as the whole territory of Missouri, THE POWER OF PROVIDING FOR THEIR EMANCIPATION RESTS WITH CONGRESS ALONE. Why then, this heart-rending sympathy for the slaves of Missouri, and this cold insensibility, this eternal apathy, towards the slaves in the District of Columbia?"

It is quite unnecessary to add, that the most distinguished northern statesmen of both political parties, have always affirmed the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District. President Van Buren in his letter of March 6, 1836, to a committee of Gentlemen in North Carolina, says, "I would not, from the light now before me, feel myself safe in pronouncing that Congress does not possess the power of abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia." This declaration of the President is consistent with his avowed sentiments touching the Missouri question, on which he coincided with such men as Daniel D. Thompkins, De Witt Clinton, and others, whose names are a host.[[A]] It is consistent, also with his recommendation in his last message, in which speaking of the District, he strongly urges upon Congress "a thorough and careful revision of its local government," speaks of the "entire independence" of the people of the District "upon Congress," recommends that a "uniform system of local government" be adopted, and adds, that "although it was selected as the seat of the General Government, the site of its public edifices, the depository of its archives, and the residences of officers intrusted with large amounts of public property, and the management of public business, yet it never has been subjected to, or received, that special and comprehensive legislation which these circumstances peculiarly demanded."

[Footnote [A]: Mr. Van Buren, when a member of the Senate of New-York, voted for the following preamble and resolutions, which passed unanimously:--Jan. 28th, 1820. "Whereas the inhibiting the further extension of slavery in the United States, is a subject of deep concern to the people of this state: and whereas, we consider slavery as an evil much to be deplored, and that every constitutional barrier should be interposed to prevent its further extension: and that the constitution of the United States clearly gives Congress the right to require new states, not comprised within the original boundary of the United States, to make the prohibition of slavery a condition of their admission into the Union: Therefore,

Resolved, That our Senators be instructed, and our members of Congress be requested, to oppose the admission as a state into the Union, of any territory not comprised as aforesaid, without making the prohibition of slavery therein an indispensible condition of admission."

]

The tenor of Mr. Tallmadge's speech on the right of petition, and of Mr. Webster's on the reception of abolition memorials, may be taken as universal exponents of the sentiments of northern statesmen as to the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia.

An explicit declaration, that an "overwhelming majority" of the present Congress concede the power to abolish slavery in the District has just been made by Robert Barnwell Rhett, a member of Congress from South Carolina, in a letter published in the Charleston Mercury of Dec. 27, 1837. The following is an extract:

"The time has arrived when we must have new guaranties under the constitution, or the Union must be dissolved. Our views of the constitution are not those of the majority. AN OVERWHELMING MAJORITY think that by the constitution, Congress may abolish slavery in the District of Columbia--may abolish the slave trade between the States; that is, it may prohibit their being carried out of the State in which they are--and prohibit it in all the territories, Florida among them. They think, NOT WITHOUT STRONG REASONS, that the power of Congress extends to all of these subjects."

Direct testimony to show that the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District, has always till recently been universally conceded, is perhaps quite superfluous. We subjoin, however, the following:

The Vice-President of the United States in his speech on the Missouri question, quoted above, after contending that the restriction of slavery in Missouri would be unconstitutional, declares, that the power of Congress over slavery in the District "COULD NOT BE QUESTIONED." In the speech of Mr. Smyth, of Va., also quoted above, he declares the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District to be "UNDOUBTED."

Mr. Sutherland, of Penn., in a speech in the House of Representatives, on the motion to print Mr. Pinckney's Report, is thus reported in the Washington Globe, of May 9th, '36. "He replied to the remark that the report conceded that Congress had a right to legislate upon the subject in the District of Columbia, and said that SUCH A RIGHT HAD NEVER BEEN, TILL RECENTLY, DENIED."

The American Quarterly Review, published at Philadelphia, with a large circulation and list of contributors in the slave states, holds the following language in the September No. 1833, p. 55: "Under this 'exclusive jurisdiction,' granted by the constitution, Congress has power to abolish slavery and the slave trade in the District of Columbia. It would hardly be necessary to state this as a distinct proposition, had it not been occasionally questioned. The truth of the assertion, however, is too obvious to admit of argument--and we believe has NEVER BEEN DISPUTED BY PERSONS WHO ARE FAMILIAR WITH THE CONSTITUTION."

OBJECTIONS TO THE FOREGOING CONCLUSIONS CONSIDERED.

We now proceed to notice briefly the main arguments that have been employed in Congress and elsewhere against the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District. One of the most plausible is, that "the conditions on which Maryland and Virginia ceded the District to the United States, would be violated, if Congress should abolish slavery there." The reply to this is, that Congress had no power to accept a cession coupled with conditions restricting that "power of exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District," which was given it by the constitution.

To show the futility of the objection, we insert here the acts of cession. The cession of Maryland was made in November, 1788, and is as follows: "An act to cede to Congress a district of ten miles square in this state for the seat of the government of the United States."

"Be it enacted, by the General Assembly of Maryland, that the representatives of this state in the House of Representatives of the Congress of the United States, appointed to assemble at New-York, on the first Wednesday of March next, be, and they are; hereby authorized and required on the behalf of this state, to cede to the Congress of the United States, any district in this state, not exceeding ten miles square, which the Congress may fix upon, and accept for the seat of government of the United States." Laws of Md., v. 2., c. 46.

The cession of Virginia was made on the 3d of December, 1788, in the following words:

"Be it enacted by the General Assembly, That a tract of country, not exceeding ten miles square, or any lesser quantity, to be located within the limits of the State, and in any part thereof; as Congress may, by law, direct, shall be, and the same is hereby forever ceded and relinquished to the Congress and Government of the United States, in full and absolute right, and exclusive jurisdiction, as well of soil, as of persons residing or to reside thereon, pursuant to the tenor and effect of the eighth section of the first article of the government of the constitution of the United States."

But were there no provisos to these acts? The Maryland act had none. The Virginia act had this proviso: "Sect. 2. Provided, that nothing herein contained, shall be construed to vest in the United States any right of property in the soil, or to affect the rights of individuals therein, otherwise than the same shall or may be transferred by such individuals to the United States."

This specification touching the soil was merely definitive and explanatory of that clause in the act of cession, "full and absolute right." Instead of restraining the power of Congress on slavery and other subjects, it even gives it freer course; for exceptions to parts of a rule, give double confirmation to those parts not embraced in the exceptions. If it was the design of the proviso to restrict congressional action on the subject of slavery, why is the soil alone specified? As legal instruments are not paragons of economy in words, might not "John Doe," out of his abundance, and without spoiling his style, have afforded an additional word--at least a hint--that slavery was meant, though nothing was said about it?

But again, Maryland and Virginia, in their acts of cession, declare them to be made "in pursuance of" that clause of the constitution which gives to Congress "exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever" over the ten miles square--thus, instead of restricting that clause, both States confirm it. Now, their acts of cession either accorded with that clause of the constitution, or they conflicted with it. If they conflicted with it, accepting the cessions was a violation of the constitution. The fact that Congress accepted the cessions, proves that in its views their terms did not conflict with its constitutional grant of power. The inquiry whether these acts of cession were consistent or inconsistent with the United Status' constitution, is totally irrelevant to the question at issue. What with the CONSTITUTION? That is the question. Not, what with Virginia, or Maryland, or--equally to the point--John Bull! If Maryland and Virginia had been the authorized interpreters of the constitution for the Union, these acts of cession could hardly have been more magnified than they have been recently by the southern delegation in Congress. A true understanding of the constitution can be had, forsooth, only by holding it up in the light of Maryland and Virginia legislation!

We are told, again, that those States would not have ceded the District if they had supposed the constitution gave Congress power to abolish slavery in it.

This comes with an ill grace from Maryland and Virginia. They knew the constitution. They were parties to it. They had sifted it, clause by clause, in their State conventions. They had weighed its words in the balance--they had tested them as by fire; and, finally, after long pondering, they adopted the constitution. And afterward, self-moved, they ceded the ten miles square, and declared the cession made "in pursuance of" that oft-cited clause, "Congress shall have power to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over such District." And now verily "they would not have ceded if they had supposed!" &c. Cede it they did, and in "full and absolute right both of soil and persons." Congress accepted the cession--state power over the District ceased, and congressional power over it commenced,--and now, the sole question to be settled is, the amount of power over the District lodged in Congress by the constitution. The constitution--THE CONSTITUTION--that is the point. Maryland and Virginia "suppositions" must be potent suppositions to abrogate a clause of the United States' Constitution! That clause either gives Congress power to abolish slavery in the District, or it does not--and that point is to be settled, not by state "suppositions," nor state usages, nor state legislation, but by the terms of the clause themselves.

Southern members of Congress, in the recent discussions, have conceded the power of a contingent abolition in the District, by suspending it upon the consent of the people. Such a doctrine from declaimers like Messrs. Alford, of Georgia, and Walker, of Mississippi, would excite no surprise; but that it should be honored with the endorsement of such men as Mr. Rives and Mr. Calhoun, is quite unaccountable. Are attributes of sovereignty mere creatures of contingency? Is delegated authority mere conditional permission? Is a constitutional power to be exercised by those who hold it, only by popular sufferance? Must it lie helpless at the pool of public sentiment, waiting the gracious troubling of its waters? Is it a lifeless corpse, save only when popular "consent" deigns to puff breath into its nostrils? Besides, if the consent of the people of the District be necessary, the consent of the whole people must be had--not that of a majority, however large. Majorities, to be authoritative, must be legal--and a legal majority without legislative power, or right of representation, or even the electoral franchise, would be truly an anomaly! In the District of Columbia, such a thing as a majority in a legal sense is unknown to law. To talk of the power of a majority, or the will of a majority there, is mere mouthing. A majority? Then it has an authoritative will, and an organ to make it known, and an executive to carry it into effect--Where are they? We repeat it--if the consent of the people of the District be necessary, the consent of every one is necessary--and universal consent will come only with the Greek Kalends and a "perpetual motion." A single individual might thus perpetuate slavery in defiance of the expressed will of a whole people. The most common form of this fallacy is given by Mr. Wise, of Virginia, in his speech, February 16, 1835, in which he denied the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District, unless the inhabitants owning slaves petitioned for it!! Southern members of Congress at the present session (1837-8) ring changes almost daily upon the same fallacy. What! pray Congress to use a power which it has not? "It is required of a man according to what he hath," saith the Scripture. I commend Mr. Wise to Paul for his ethics. Would that he had got his logic of him! If Congress does not possess the power, why taunt it with its weakness, by asking its exercise? Petitioning, according to Mr. Wise, is, in matters of legislation, omnipotence itself; the very source of all constitutional power; for, asking Congress to do what it cannot do, gives it the power!--to pray the exercise of a power that is not, creates it! A beautiful theory! Let us work it both ways. If to petition for the exercise of a power that is not, creates it--to petition against the exercise of a power that is, annihilates it. As southern gentlemen are partial to summary processes, pray, sirs, try the virtue of your own recipe on "exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever;" a better subject for experiment and test of the prescription could not be had. But if the petitions of the citizens of the District give Congress the right to abolish slavery, they impose the duty; if they confer constitutional authority, they create constitutional obligation. If Congress may abolish because of an expression of their will, it must abolish at the bidding of that will. If the people of the District are a source of power to Congress, their expressed will has the force of a constitutional provision, and has the same binding power upon the National Legislature. To make Congress dependent on the District for authority, is to make it a subject of its authority, restraining the exercise of its own discretion, and sinking it into a mere organ of the District's will. We proceed to another objection.

"The southern states would not have ratified the constitution, if they had supposed that it gave this power." It is a sufficient answer to this objection, that the northern states would not have ratified it, if they had supposed that it withheld the power. If "suppositions" are to take the place of the constitution--coming from both sides, they neutralize each other. To argue a constitutional question by guessing at the "suppositions" that might have been made by the parties to it would find small favor in a court of law. But even a desperate shift is some easement when sorely pushed. If this question is to be settled by "suppositions," suppositions shall be forthcoming, and that without stint.

First, then, I affirm that the North ratified the constitution, "supposing" that slavery had begun to wax old, and would speedily vanish away, and especially that the abolition of the slave trade, which by the constitution was to be surrendered to Congress after twenty years, would plunge it headlong.

Would the North have adopted the constitution, giving three-fifths of the "slave property" a representation, if it had "supposed" that the slaves would have increased from half a million to two millions and a half by 1838--and that the census of 1840 would give to the slave states thirty representatives of "slave property?"

If they had "supposed" that this representation would have controlled the legislation of the government, and carried against the North every question vital to its interests, would Hamilton, Franklin, Sherman, Gerry, Livingston, Langdon, and Rufus King have been such madmen, as to sign the constitution, and the Northern States such suicides as to ratify it? Every self-preserving instinct would have shrieked at such an infatuate immolation. At the adoption of the United States constitution, slavery was regarded as a fast waning system. This conviction was universal. Washington, Jefferson, Henry, Grayson, Tucker, Madison, Wythe, Pendleton, Lee, Blair, Mason, Page, Parker, Randolph, Iredell, Spaight, Ramsey, Pinkney, Martin, McHenry, Chase, and nearly all the illustrious names south of the Potomac, proclaimed it before the sun. A reason urged in the convention that formed the United States' constitution, why the word slave should not be used in it, was, that when slavery should cease there might remain upon the National Charter no record that it had ever been. (See speech of Mr. Burrill, of R.I., on the Missouri question.)

I now proceed to show by testimony, that at the date of the United States' constitution, and for several years before and after that period, slavery was rapidly on the wane; that the American Revolution with the great events preceding, accompanying, and following it, had wrought an immense and almost universal change in the public sentiment of the nation on the subject, powerfully impelling it toward the entire abolition of the system--and that it was the general belief that measures for its abolition throughout the Union, would be commenced by the States generally before the lapse of many years. A great mass of testimony establishing this position might be presented, but narrow space, and the importance of speedy publication, counsel brevity. Let the following proofs suffice. First, a few dates as points of observation.

In 1757, Commissioners from seven colonies met at Albany, resolved upon a Union and proposed a plan of general government. In 1765, delegates from nine colonies met at New York and sent forth a bill of rights. The first general Congress met in 1774. The first Congress of the thirteen colonies met in 1775. The revolutionary war commenced in '75. Independence was declared in '76. The articles of confederation were adopted by the thirteen states in '77 and '78. Independence acknowledged in '83. The convention for forming the U.S. constitution was held in '87, the state conventions for considering it in '87 and '88. The first Congress under the constitution in '89.

Dr. Rush, of Pennsylvania, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, in a letter to Granville Sharpe, May 1, 1773, says: "A spirit of humanity and religion begins to awaken in several of the colonies in favor of the poor negroes. Great events have been brought about by small beginnings. Anthony Bènèzet stood alone a few years ago in opposing negro slavery in Philadelphia, and NOW THREE-FOURTHS OF THE PROVINCE AS WELL AS OF THE CITY CRY OUT AGAINST IT."--[Stuart's Life of Granville Sharpe, p. 21.]

In the preamble to the act prohibiting the importation of slaves into Rhode Island, June, 1774, is the following: "Whereas the inhabitants of America are generally engaged in the preservation of their own rights and liberties, among which that of personal freedom must be considered the greatest, and as those who are desirous of enjoying all the advantages of liberty themselves, should be willing to extend personal liberty to others, therefore," &c.

October 20, 1774, the Continental Congress passed the following: "We, for ourselves and the inhabitants of the several colonies whom we represent, firmly agree and associate under the sacred ties of virtue, honor, and love of our country, as follows:"

"2d Article. We will neither import nor purchase any slaves imported after the first day of December next, after which time we will wholly discontinue the slave trade, and we will neither be concerned in it ourselves, nor will we hire our vessels nor sell our commodities or manufactures to those who are concerned in it."

The Continental Congress, in 1775, setting forth the causes and the necessity for taking up arms, say: "If it were possible for men who exercise their reason to believe that the divine Author of our existence intended a part of the human race to hold an absolute property in, and unbounded power over others," &c.

In 1776, Dr. Hopkins, then at the head of New England divines, in "An Address to the owners of negro slaves in the American colonies," says: "The conviction of the unjustifiableness of this practice (slavery) has been increasing, and greatly spreading of late, and many who have had slaves, have found themselves so unable to justify their own conduct in holding them in bondage, as to be induced to set them at liberty.

* * * * *

Slavery is in every instance, wrong, unrighteous, and oppressive--a very great and crying sin--there being nothing of the kind equal to it on the face of the earth."

The same year the American Congress issued a solemn MANIFESTO to the world. These were its first words: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Once, these were words of power; now, "a rhetorical flourish."

The Virginia Gazette of March 19, 1767, in an essay on slavery says: "There cannot be in nature, there is not in all history, an instance in which every right of man is more flagrantly violated. Enough I hope has been effected to prove that slavery is a violation of justice and religion."

The celebrated Patrick Henry of Virginia, in a letter, Jan. 18, 1773, to Robert Pleasants, afterwards president of the Virginia Abolition Society, says: "Believe me, I shall honor the Quakers for their noble efforts to abolish slavery. It is a debt we owe to the purity of our religion to show that it is at variance with that law that warrants slavery. I exhort you to persevere in so worthy a resolution."

The Pennsylvania Chronicle of Nov. 21, 1768, says: "Let every black that shall henceforth be born amongst us be deemed free. One step farther would be to emancipate the whole race, restoring that liberty we have so long unjustly detained from them. Till some step of this kind be taken we shall justly be the derision of the whole world."

In 1779, the Continental Congress ordered a pamphlet to be published, entitled, "Observations on the American Revolution," from which the following is an extract: "The great principle (of government) is and ever will remain in force, that men are by Nature free; and so long as we have any idea of divine justice, we must associate that of human freedom. It is conceded on all hands, that the right to be free CAN NEVER BE ALIENATED."

Extract from the Pennsylvania act for the abolition of slavery, passed March 1, 1780: * * * "We conceive that it is our duty, and we rejoice that it is in our power, to extend a portion of that freedom to others which has been extended to us. Weaned by a long course of experience from those narrow prejudices and partialities we had imbibed, we find our hearts enlarged with kindness and benevolence towards men of all conditions and nations: * * * Therefore be it enacted, that no child born hereafter be a slave," &c.

Jefferson, in his Notes on Virginia, written just before the close of the Revolutionary War, says: "I think a change already perceptible since the origin of the present revolution. The spirit of the master is abating, that of the slave is rising from the dust, his condition mollifying, and the way I hope preparing, under the auspices of heaven, FOR A TOTAL EMANCIPATION."

In a letter to Dr. Price, of London, who had just published a pamphlet in favor of the abolition of slavery, Mr. Jefferson, then minister at Paris, (August 7, 1785,) says: "From the mouth to the head of the Chesapeake, the bulk of the people will approve of your pamphlet in theory, and it will find a respectable minority ready to adopt it in practice--a minority which, for weight and worth of character, preponderates against the greater number." Speaking of Virginia, he says: "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. Be not, therefore, discouraged--what you have written will do a great deal of good; and could you still trouble yourself with our welfare, no man is more able to give aid to the laboring side. The College of William and Mary, since the remodelling of its plan, is the place where are collected together all the young men of Virginia, under preparation for public life. They are there under the direction (most of them) of a Mr. Wythe, one of the most virtuous of characters, and whose sentiments on the subject of slavery are unequivocal. I am satisfied, if you could resolve to address an exhortation to those young men with all that eloquence of which you are master, that its influence on the future decision of this important question would be great, perhaps decisive. Thus. you see, that so far from thinking you have cause to repent of what you have done, I wish you to do more, and I wish it on an assurance of its effect."--Jefferson's Posthumous Works, vol. 1, p. 268.

In 1786, John Jay drafted and signed a petition to the Legislature of New York, on the subject of slavery, beginning with these words: "Your memorialists being deeply affected by the situation of those, who, although, FREE BY THE LAWS OF GOD, are held in slavery by the laws of the State," &c. This memorial bore also the signatures of the celebrated Alexander Hamilton; Robert R. Livingston, afterwards Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the United States, and Chancellor of the State of New York; James Duane, Mayor of the City of New York, and many others of the most eminent individuals in the State.

In the preamble of an instrument, by which Mr. Jay emancipated a slave in 1784, is the following passage:

"Whereas, the children of men are by nature equally free, and cannot, without injustice, be either reduced to or HELD in slavery."

In his letter while Minister at Spain, in 1786, he says, speaking of the abolition of slavery: "Till America comes into this measure, her prayers to heaven will be IMPIOUS. I believe God governs the world; and I believe it to be a maxim in his, as in our court, that those who ask for equity ought to do it."

In 1785, the New York Manumission Society was formed. John Jay was chosen its first President, and held the office five years. Alexander Hamilton was its second President, and after holding the office one year, resigned upon his removal to Philadelphia as Secretary of the United States' Treasury. In 1787, the Pennsylvania Abolition Society was formed. Benjamin Franklin, warm from the discussions of the convention that formed the U.S. constitution, was chosen President, and Benjamin Rush Secretary--both signers of the Declaration of Independence. In 1789, the Maryland Abolition Society was formed. Among its officers were Samuel Chase, Judge of the U.S. Supreme Court, and Luther Martin, a member of the convention that formed the U.S. constitution. In 1790, the Connecticut Abolition Society was formed. The first President was Rev. Dr. Stiles, President of Yale College, and the Secretary, Simeon Baldwin, (late Judge Baldwin of New Haven.) In 1791, this Society sent a memorial to Congress, from which the following is an extract:

"From a sober conviction of the unrighteousness of slavery, your petitioners have long beheld, with grief, our fellow men doomed to perpetual bondage, in a country which boasts of her freedom. Your petitioners were led, by motives, we conceive, of general philanthropy, to associate ourselves for the protection and assistance of this unfortunate part of our fellow men; and, though this Society has been lately established, it has now become generally extensive through this state, and, we fully believe, embraces, on this subject, the sentiments of a large majority of its citizens."

The same year the Virginia Abolition Society was formed. This Society, and the Maryland Society, had auxiliaries in different parts of those States. Both societies sent up memorials to Congress. The memorial of the Virginia Society is headed--"The memorial of the Virginia Society, for promoting the Abolition of Slavery," &c. The following is an extract:

"Your memorialists, fully believing that slavery is not only an odious degradation, but an outrageous violation of one of the most essential rights of human nature, and utterly repugnant to the precepts of the gospel," &c.

About the same time a Society was formed in New-Jersey. It had an acting committee of five members in each county in the State. The following is an extract from the preamble to its constitution:

"It is our boast, that we live under a government, wherein life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, are recognized as the universal rights of men. We abhor that inconsistent, illiberal, and interested policy, which withholds those rights from an unfortunate and degraded class of our fellow creatures."

Among other distinguished individuals who were efficient officers of these Abolition Societies, and delegates from their respective state societies, at the annual meetings of the American convention for promoting the abolition of slavery, were Hon. Uriah Tracy, United States' Senator, from Connecticut; Hon. Zephaniah Swift, Chief Justice of the same State; Hon. Cesar A. Rodney, Attorney General of the United States; Hon. James A. Bayard, United States' Senator, from Delaware; Governor Bloomfield, of New-Jersey; Hon. Wm. Rawle, the late venerable head of the Philadelphia bar; Dr. Caspar Wistar, of Philadelphia; Messrs. Foster and Tillinghast, of Rhode Island; Messrs. Ridgely, Buchanan, and Wilkinson, of Maryland; and Messrs. Pleasants, McLean, and Anthony, of Virginia.

In July, 1787, the old Congress passed the celebrated ordinance abolishing slavery in the northwestern territory, and declaring that it should never thereafter exist there. This ordinance was passed while the convention that formed the United States' constitution was in session. At the first session of Congress under the constitution, this ordinance was ratified by a special act. Washington, fresh from the discussions of the convention, in which more than forty days had been spent in adjusting the question of slavery, gave it his approval. The act passed with only one dissenting voice, (that of Mr. Yates, of New York,) the South equally with the North avowing the fitness and expediency of the measure on general considerations, and indicating thus early the line of national policy, to be pursued by the United States' Government on the subject of slavery.

In the debates in the North Carolina Convention, Mr. Iredell, afterward a Judge of the United States' Supreme Court, said, "When the entire abolition of slavery takes place, it will be an event which must be pleasing to every generous mind and every friend of human nature." Mr. Galloway said, "I wish to see this abominable trade put an end to. I apprehend the clause (touching the slave trade) means to bring forward manumission." Luther Martin, of Maryland, a member of the convention that formed the United States' Constitution, said, "We ought to authorize the General Government to make such regulations as shall be thought most advantageous for the gradual abolition of slavery, and the emancipation of the slaves which are already in the States." Judge Wilson, of Pennsylvania, one of the framers of the constitution, said, in the Pennsylvania convention of '87, [Deb. Pa. Con. p. 303, 156:] "I consider this (the clause relative to the slave trade) as laying the foundation for banishing slavery out of this country. It will produce the same kind of gradual change which was produced in Pennsylvania; the new States which are to be formed will be under the control of Congress in this particular, and slaves will never be introduced among them. It presents us with the pleasing prospect that the rights of mankind will be acknowledged and established throughout the Union. Yet the lapse of a few years, and Congress will have power to exterminate slavery within our borders." In the Virginia convention of '87, Mr. Mason, author of the Virginia constitution, said, "The augmentation of slaves weakens the States, and such a trade is diabolical in itself, and disgraceful to mankind. As much as I value a union of all the States, I would not admit the Southern States, (i.e., South Carolina and Georgia,) into the union, unless they agree to a discontinuance of this disgraceful trade." Mr. Tyler opposed with great power the clause prohibiting the abolition of the slave trade till 1808, and said, "My earnest desire is, that it shall be handed down to posterity that I oppose this wicked clause." Mr. Johnson said, "The principle of emancipation has begun since the revolution. Let us do what we will, it will come round."--[Deb. Va. Con. p. 463.] Patrick Henry, arguing the power of Congress under the United States' constitution to abolish slavery in the States, said, in the same convention, "Another thing will contribute to bring this event (the abolition of slavery) about. Slavery is detested. We feel its fatal effects; we deplore it with all the pity of humanity." Governor Randolph said: "They insist that the abolition of slavery will result from this Constitution. I hope that there is no one here, who will advance an objection so dishonorable to Virginia--I hope that at the moment they are securing the rights of their citizens, an objection will not be started, that those unfortunate men now held in bondage, by the operation of the general government may be made free!" [Deb. Va. Con. p. 421.] In the Mass. Con. of '88, Judge Dawes said, "Although slavery is not smitten by an apoplexy, yet it has received a mortal wound, and will die of consumption."--[Deb. Mass. Con. p. 60.] General Heath said that, "Slavery was confined to the States now existing, it could not be extended. By their ordinance, Congress had declared that the new States should be republican States, and have no slavery."--p. 147.

In the debate, in the first Congress, February 11th and 12th, 1789, on the petitions of the Society of Friends, and the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, Mr. Parker, of Virginia, said, "I cannot help expressing the pleasure I feel in finding so considerable a part of the community attending to matters of such a momentous concern to the future prosperity and happiness of the people of America. I think it my duty, as a citizen of the Union, to espouse their cause."

Mr. Page, of Virginia, (afterwards Governor)--"Was in favor of the commitment: he hoped that the designs of the respectable memorialists would not be stopped at the threshold, in order to preclude a fair discussion of the prayer of the memorial. He placed himself in the case of a slave, and said, that on hearing that Congress had refused to listen to the decent suggestions of the respectable part of the community, he should infer, that the general government, from which was expected great good would result to EVERY CLASS of citizens, had shut their ears against the voice of humanity, and he should despair of any alleviation of the miseries he and his posterity had in prospect; if any thing could induce him to rebel, it must be a stroke like this, impressing on his mind all the horrors of despair. But if he was told, that application was made in his behalf, and that Congress were willing to hear what could be urged in favor of discouraging the practice of importing his fellow-wretches, he would trust in their justice and humanity, and wait the decision patiently."

Mr. Scott of Pennsylvania: "I cannot, for my part, conceive how any person can be said to acquire a property in another. I do not know how far I might go, if I was one of the judges of the United States, and those people were to come before me and claim their emancipation, but I am sure I would go as far as I could."

Mr. Burke, of South Carolina, said, "He saw the disposition of the House, and he feared it would be referred to a committee, maugre all their opposition."

Mr. Baldwin of Georgia said that the clause in the U.S. Constitution relating to direct taxes "was intended to prevent Congress from laying any special tax upon negro slaves, as they might, in this way, so burthen the possessors of them, as to induce a GENERAL EMANCIPATION."

Mr. Smith of South Carolina, said, "That on entering into this government, they (South Carolina and Georgia) apprehended that the other states, * * * would, from motives of humanity and benevolence, be led to vote for a general emancipation."

In the debate, at the same session, May 13th, 1789, on the petition of the society of Friends respecting the slave trade, Mr. Parker, of Virginia, said, "He hoped Congress would do all that lay in their power to restore to human nature its inherent privileges. The inconsistency in our principles, with which we are justly charged should be done away."

Mr. Jackson, of Georgia, said, "IT WAS THE FASHION OF THE DAY TO FAVOR THE LIBERTY OF THE SLAVES. * * * * * Will Virginia set her negroes free? When this practice comes to be tried, then the sound of liberty will lose those charms which make it grateful to the ravished ear."

Mr. Madison of Virginia,--"The dictates of humanity, the principles of the people, the national safety and happiness, and prudent policy, require it of us. * * * * * * * I conceive the constitution in this particular was formed in order that the Government, whilst it was restrained from laying a total prohibition, might be able to give some testimony of the sense of America, with respect to the African trade. * * * * * * It is to be hoped, that by expressing a national disapprobation of this trade, we may destroy it, and save ourselves from reproaches, AND OUR PROSPERITY THE IMBECILITY EVER ATTENDANT ON A COUNTRY FILLED WITH SLAVES."

Mr. Gerry, of Massachusetts, said, "he highly commended the part the Society of Friends had taken; it was the cause of humanity they had interested themselves in."--Cong. Reg. v. 1, p. 308-12.

A writer in the "Gazette of the Unites States," Feb. 20th, 1790, (then the government paper,) who opposes the abolition of slavery, and avows himself a slaveholder, says, "I have seen in the papers accounts of large associations, and applications to Government for the abolition of slavery. Religion, humanity, and the generosity natural to a free people, are the noble principles which dictate those measures. SUCH MOTIVES COMMAND RESPECT, AND ARE ABOVE ANY EULOGIUM WORDS CAN BESTOW."

In the convention that formed the constitution of Kentucky in 1790, the effort to prohibit slavery was nearly successful. A decided majority of that body would undoubtedly have voted for its exclusion, but for the great efforts and influence of two large slaveholders--men of commanding talents and sway--Messrs. Breckenridge and Nicholas. The following extract from a speech made in that convention by a member of it, Mr. Rice a native Virginian, is a specimen of the free discussion that prevailed on that "delicate subject." Said Mr. Rice: "I do a man greater injury, when I deprive him of his liberty, than when I deprive him of his property. It is vain for me to plead that I have the sanction of law; for this makes the injury the greater--it arms the community against him, and makes his case desperate. The owners of such slaves then are licensed robbers, and not the just proprietors of what they claim. Freeing them is not depriving them of property, but restoring it to the right owner. The master is the enemy of the slave; he has made open war upon him, AND IS DAILY CARRYING IT ON in unremitted efforts. Can any one imagine, then, that the slave is indebted to his master, and bound to serve him? Whence can the obligation arise? What is it founded upon? What is my duty to an enemy that is carrying on war against me? I do not deny, but in some circumstances, it is the duty of the slave to serve; but it is a duty he owes himself, and not his master."

President Edwards, the younger, said, in a sermon preached before the Connecticut Abolition Society, Sept. 15, 1791: "Thirty years ago, scarcely a man in this country thought either the slave trade or the slavery of negroes to be wrong; but now how many and able advocates in private life, in our legislatures, in Congress, have appeared, and have openly and irrefragably pleaded the rights of humanity in this as well as other instances? And if we judge of the future by the past, within fifty years from this time, it will be as shameful for a man to hold a negro slave, as to be guilty of common robbery or theft."

In 1794, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian church adopted its "Scripture proofs," notes, and comments. Among these was the following:

"1 Tim. i. 10. The law is made for manstealers. This crime among the Jews exposed the perpetrators of it to capital punishment. Exodus xxi. 16. And the apostle here classes them with sinners of the first rank. The word he uses, in its original import comprehends all who are concerned in bringing any of the human race into slavery, or in retaining them in it. Stealers of men are all those who bring off slaves or freemen, and keep, sell, or buy them."

In 1794, Dr. Rush declared: "Domestic slavery is repugnant to the principles of Christianity. It prostrates every benevolent and just principle of action in the human heart. It is rebellion against the authority of a common Father. It is a practical denial of the extent and efficacy of the death of a common Saviour. It is an usurpation of the prerogative of the great Sovereign of the universe, who has solemnly claimed an exclusive property in the souls of men."

In 1795, Mr. Fiske, then an officer of Dartmouth College, afterward a Judge in Tennessee, said, in an oration published that year, speaking of slaves: "I steadfastly maintain, that we must bring them to an equal standing, in point of privileges, with the whites! They must enjoy all the rights belonging to human nature."

When the petition on the abolition of the slave trade was under discussion in the Congress of '89, Mr. Brown, of North Carolina, said, "The emancipation of the slaves will be effected in time; it ought to be a gradual business, but he hoped that Congress would not precipitate it to the great injury of the southern States." Mr. Hartley, of Pennsylvania, said, in the same debate, "He was not a little surprised to hear the cause of slavery advocated in that house." WASHINGTON, in a letter to Sir John Sinclair, says, "There are, in Pennsylvania, laws for the gradual abolition of slavery which neither Maryland nor Virginia have at present, but which nothing is more certain than that they must have, and at a period NOT REMOTE." In 1782, Virginia passed her celebrated manumission act. Within nine years from that time nearly eleven thousand slaves were voluntarily emancipated by their masters. [Judge Tucker's "Dissertation on Slavery," p. 72.] In 1787, Maryland passed an act legalizing manumission. Mr. Dorsey, of Maryland, in a speech in Congress, December 27th, 1826, speaking of manumissions under that act, said, that "The progress of emancipation was astonishing, the State became crowded with a free black population."

The celebrated William Pinkney, in a speech before the Maryland House of Delegates, in 1789, on the emancipation of slaves, said, "Sir, by the eternal principles of natural justice, no master in the state has a right to hold his slave in bandage for a single hour... Are we apprehensive that these men will become more dangerous by becoming freemen? Are we alarmed, lest by being admitted into the enjoyment of civil rights, they will be inspired with a deadly enmity against the rights of others? Strange, unaccountable paradox! How much more rational would it be, to argue that the natural enemy of the privileges of a freeman, is he who is robbed of them himself!"

Hon. James Campbell, in an address before the Pennsylvania Society of Cincinnati, July 4, 1787, said, "Our separation from Great Britain has extended the empire of humanity. The time is not far distant when our sister states, in imitation of our example, shall turn their vassals into freemen." The Convention that formed the United States' constitution being then in session, attended on the delivery of this oration with General Washington at their head.

A Baltimore paper of September 8th, 1780, contains the following notice of Major General Gates: "A few days ago passed through this town the Hon. General Gates and lady. The General, previous to leaving Virginia, summoned his numerous family of slaves about him, and amidst their tears of affection and gratitude, gave them their Freedom."

In 1791, the university of William and Mary, in Virginia, conferred upon Granville Sharpe the degree of Doctor of Laws. Sharpe was at that time the acknowledged head of British abolitionists. His indefatigable exertions, prosecuted for years in the case of Somerset, procured that memorable decision in the Court of King's Bench, which settled the principle that no slave could be held in England. He was most uncompromising in his opposition to slavery, and for twenty years previous he had spoken, written, and accomplished more against it than any man living.

In the "Memoirs of the Revolutionary War in the Southern Department," by Gen. Lee, of Va., Commandant of the Partizan Legion, is the following: "The Constitution of the United States, adopted lately with so much difficulty, has effectually provided against this evil (by importation) after a few years. It is much to be lamented that having done so much in this way, a provision had not been made for the gradual abolition of slavery."--pp. 233, 4.

Mr. Tucker, of Virginia, Judge of the Supreme Court of that state, and professor of law in the University of William and Mary, addressed a letter to the General Assembly of that state, in 1796, urging the abolition of slavery, from which the following is an extract. Speaking of the slaves in Virginia, he says: "Should we not, at the time of the revolution, have broken their fetters? Is it not our duty to embrace the first moment of constitutional health and vigor to effectuate so desirable an object, and to remove from us a stigma with which our enemies will never fail to upbraid us, nor our consciences to reproach us?"

Mr. Faulkner, in a speech before the Virginia House of Delegates, Jan. 20, 1832, said: "The idea of a gradual emancipation and removal of the slaves from this commonwealth, is coeval with the declaration of our independence from the British yoke. When Virginia stood sustained in her legislation by the pure and philosophic intellect of Pendleton, by the patriotism of Mason and Lee, by the searching vigor and sagacity of Wythe, and by the all-embracing, all-comprehensive genius of Thomas Jefferson! Sir, it was a committee composed of those five illustrious men, who, in 1777, submitted to the general assembly of this state, then in session, a plan for the gradual emancipation of the slaves of this commonwealth."

Hon. Benjamin Watkins Leigh, late United States' senator from Virginia, in his letters to the people of Virginia, in 1832, signed Appomattox, p. 43, says: "I thought, till very lately, that it was known to every body that during the revolution, and for many years after, the abolition of slavery was a favorite topic with many of our ablest statesmen, who entertained, with respect, all the schemes which wisdom or ingenuity could suggest for accomplishing the object. Mr. Wythe, to the day of his death, was for a simple abolition, considering the objection to color as founded in prejudice. By degrees, all projects of the kind were abandoned. Mr. Jefferson retained his opinion, and now we have these projects revived."

Governor Barbour, of Virginia, in his speech in the U.S. Senate, on the Missouri question, Jan. 1820, said: "We are asked why has Virginia changed her policy in reference to slavery? That the sentiments of our most distinguished men, for thirty years entirely corresponded with the course which the friends of the restriction (of slavery in Missouri) now advocated; and that the Virginia delegation, one of whom was the late President of the United States, voted for the restriction (of slavery) in the northwestern territory, and that Mr. Jefferson has delineated a gloomy picture of the baneful effects of slavery. When it is recollected that the Notes of Mr. Jefferson were written during the progress of the revolution, it is no matter of surprise that the writer should have imbibed a large portion of that enthusiasm which such an occasion was so well calculated to produce. As to the consent of the Virginia delegation to the restriction in question, whether the result of a disposition to restrain the slave-trade indirectly, or the influence of that enthusiasm to which I have just alluded, * * * * it is not now important to decide. We have witnessed its effects. The liberality of Virginia, or, as the result may prove, her folly, which submitted to, or, if you will, PROPOSED this measure (abolition of slavery in the N.W. territory) has eventuated in effects which speak a monitory lesson. How is the representation from this quarter on the present question?"

Mr. Imlay, in his early history of Kentucky, p. 185, says: "We have disgraced the fair face of humanity, and trampled upon the sacred privileges of man, at the very moment that we were exclaiming against the tyranny of your (the English) ministry. But in contending for the birthright of freedom, we have learned to feel for the bondage of others, and in the libations we offer to the goddess of liberty, we contemplate an emancipation of the slaves of this country, as honorable to themselves as it will be glorious to us."

In the debate in Congress, Jan. 20, 1806, on Mr. Sloan's motion to lay a tax on the importation of slaves, Mr. Clark of Va. said: "He was no advocate for a system of slavery." Mr. Marion, of S. Carolina, said: "He never had purchased, nor should he ever purchase a slave." Mr. Southard said: "Not revenue, but an expression of the national sentiment is the principal object." Mr. Smilie--"I rejoice that the word (slave) is not in the constitution; its not being there does honor to the worthies who would not suffer it to become a part of it." Mr. Alston, of N. Carolina--"In two years we shall have the power to prohibit the trade altogether. Then this House will be unanimous. No one will object to our exercising our full constitutional powers." National Intelligencer, Jan. 24, 1806.

These witnesses need no vouchers to entitle them to credit; nor their testimony comments to make it intelligible--their names are their endorsers, and their strong words their own interpreters. We waive all comments. Our readers are of age. Whosoever hath ears to hear, let him HEAR. And whosoever will not hear the fathers of the revolution, the founders of the government, its chief magistrates, judges, legislators and sages, who dared and perilled all under the burdens, and in the heat of the day that tried men's souls--then "neither will he be persuaded though THEY rose from the dead."

Some of the points established by this testimony are--The universal expectation that Congress, state legislatures, seminaries of learning, churches, ministers of religion, and public sentiment widely embodied in abolition societies, would act against slavery, calling forth the moral sense of the nation, and creating a power of opinion that would abolish the system throughout the Union. In a word, that free speech and a free press would be wielded against it without ceasing and without restriction. Full well did the South know, not only that the national government would probably legislate against slavery wherever the constitution placed it within its reach, but she knew also that Congress had already marked out the line of national policy to be pursued on the subject--had committed itself before the world to a course of action against slavery, wherever she could move upon it without encountering a conflicting jurisdiction--that the nation had established by solemn ordinance a memorable precedent for subsequent action, by abolishing slavery in the northwest territory, and by declaring that it should never thenceforward exist there; and this too, as soon as by cession of Virginia and other states, the territory came under congressional control. The South knew also that the sixth article in the ordinance prohibiting slavery, was first proposed by the largest slaveholding state in the confederacy--that in the Congress of '84, Mr. Jefferson, as chairman of the committee on the N.W. territory, reported a resolution abolishing slavery there--that the chairman of the committee that reported the ordinance of '87 was also a slaveholder--that the ordinance was enacted by Congress during the session of the convention that formed the United States' Constitution--that the provisions of the ordinance were, both while in prospect and when under discussion, matters of universal notoriety and approval with all parties, and when finally passed, received the vote of every member of Congress from each of the slaveholding states. The South also had every reason for believing that the first Congress under the constitution would ratify that ordinance--as it did unanimously.

A crowd of reflections, suggested by the preceding testimony, presses for utterance. The right of petition ravished and trampled by its constitutional guardians, and insult and defiance hurled in the faces of the SOVEREIGN PEOPLE while calmly remonstrating with their SERVANTS for violence committed on the nation's charter and their own dearest rights! Added to this "the right of peaceably assembling" violently wrested--the rights of minorities, rights no longer--free speech struck dumb--free men outlawed and murdered--free presses cast into the streets and their fragments strewed with shoutings, or flourished in triumph before the gaze of approving crowds as proud mementos of prostrate law! The spirit and power of our fathers, where are they? Their deep homage always and every where rendered to FREE THOUGHT, with its inseparable signs--free speech and a free press--their reverence for justice, liberty, rights and all-pervading law, where are they?

But we turn from these considerations--though the times on which we have fallen, and those toward which we are borne with headlong haste, call for their discussion as with the voices of departing life--and proceed to topics relevant to the argument before us.

The seventh article of the amendments to the constitution is alleged to withhold from Congress the power to abolish slavery in the District. "No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." All the slaves in the District have been "deprived of liberty" by legislative acts. Now, these legislative acts "depriving" them "of liberty," were either "due process of law," or they were not. If they were, then a legislative act, taking from the master that "property" which is the identical "liberty" previously taken from the slave, would be "due process of law" also, and of course a constitutional act; but if the legislative acts "depriving" them of "liberty" were not "due process of law," then the slaves were deprived of liberty unconstitutionally, and these acts are void. In that case the constitution emancipates them.

If the objector reply, by saying that the import of the phrase "due process of law," is judicial process solely, it is granted, and that fact is our rejoinder; for no slave in the District has been deprived of his liberty by "a judicial process," or, in other words, by "due process of law;" consequently, upon the objector's own admission, every slave in the District has been deprived of liberty unconstitutionally, and is therefore free by the constitution. This is asserted only of the slaves under the "exclusive legislation" of Congress.

The last clause of the article under consideration is quoted for the same purpose: "Nor shall private property he taken for public use without just compensation." Each of the state constitutions has a clause of similar purport. The abolition of slavery in the District by Congress, would not, as we shall presently show; violate this clause either directly or by implication. Granting for argument's sake, that slaves are "private property," and that to emancipate them, would be to "take private property" for "public use," the objector admits the power of Congress to do this, provided it will do something else, that is, pay for them. Thus, instead of denying the power, the objector not only admits, but affirms it, as the ground of the inference that compensation must accompany it. So far from disproving the existence of one power, he asserts the existence of two--one, the power to take the slaves from their masters, the other, the power to take the property of the United States to pay for them.

If Congress cannot constitutionally impair the right of private property, or take it without compensation, it cannot constitutionally, legalize the perpetration of such acts, by others, nor protect those who commit them. Does the power to rob a man of his earnings, rob the earner of his right to them? Who has a better right to the product than the producer?--to the interest, than the owner of the principal?--to the hands and arms, than he from whose shoulders they swing?--to the body and soul, than he whose they are? Congress not only impairs but annihilates the right of private property, while it withholds from the slaves of the District their title to themselves. What! Congress powerless to protect a man's right to himself, when it can make inviolable the right to a dog! But, waiving this, I deny that the abolition of slavery in the District would violate this clause. What does the clause prohibit? The "taking" of "private property" for "public use." Suppose Congress should emancipate the slaves in the District, what would it "take?" Nothing. What would it hold? Nothing. What would it put to "public use?" Nothing. Instead of taking "private property," Congress, by abolishing slavery, would say "private property shall not be taken; and those who have been robbed of it already, shall be kept out of it no longer; and every man's right to his own body shall be protected." True, Congress may not arbitrarily take property, as property, from one man and give it to another--and in the abolition of slavery no such thing is done. A legislative act changes the condition of the slave--makes him his own proprietor, instead of the property of another. It determines a question of original right between two classes of persons--doing an act of justice to one, and restraining the other from acts of injustice; or, in other words, preventing one from robbing the other, by granting to the injured party the protection of just and equitable laws.

Congress, by an act of abolition, would change the condition of seven thousand "persons" in the District, but would "take" nothing. To construe this provision so as to enable the citizens of the District to hold as property, and in perpetuity, whatever they please, or to hold it as property in all circumstances--all necessity, public welfare, and the will and power of the government to the contrary notwithstanding--is a total perversion of its whole intent. The design of the provision, was to throw up a barrier against Governmental aggrandizement. The right to "take property" for State uses is one thing;--the right so to adjust the tenures by which property is held, that each may have his own secured to him, is another thing, and clearly within the scope of legislation. Besides, if Congress were to "take" the slaves in the District, it would be adopting, not abolishing slavery--becoming a slaveholder itself, instead of requiring others to be such no longer. The clause in question, prohibits the "taking" of individual property for public use, to be employed or disposed of as property for governmental purposes. Congress, by abolishing slavery in the District, would do no such thing. It would merely change the condition of that which has been recognized as a qualified property by congressional acts, though previously declared "persons" by the constitution. More than this is done continually by Congress and every other Legislature. Property the most absolute and unqualified, is annihilated by legislative acts. The embargo and non-intercourse act, levelled at a stroke a forest of shipping, and sunk millions of capital. To say nothing of the power of Congress to take hundreds of millions from the people by direct taxation, who doubts its power to abolish at once the whole tariff system, change the seat of Government, arrest the progress of national works, prohibit any branch of commerce with the Indian tribes or with foreign nations, change the locality of forts, arsenals, magazines and dock yards; abolish the Post Office system, and the privilege of patents and copyrights? By such acts Congress might, in the exercise of its acknowledged powers, annihilate property to an incalculable amount, and that without becoming liable to claims for compensation.

Finally, this clause prohibits the taking for public use of "property." The constitution of the United States does not recognize slaves as "PROPERTY" any where, and it does not recognize them in any sense in the District of Columbia. All allusions to them in the constitution recognize 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 recognize 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 recognize 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 recognized 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 recognized 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 recognized 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 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 a 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 Iowa 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 forestalled 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 estate--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 revel upon their spoils under the license, and by the ministration 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 in the District it has none to protect another--none to protect any--and if it can protect one man and is bound to do it, it can protect every man--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 blacks against whites, as in that of defending whites against blacks. The power is also conferred 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 interest? 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 the 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 there when the public safety requires it, it may 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, and archives of the Departments of State, Treasury, War, and Navy, the General Post-office, and Patent office. It is also the residence of the President, of all the highest officers of the government, of both houses of Congress, and of 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 war, 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." Cong. Reg. vol. 1, p. 310, 11.

WYTHE.

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 henceforward any act of Congress in derogation of freedom and in deference to slavery, can be deemed extraordinary,--should not be passed 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 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 our national councils, that hereafter congressional action on this subject will 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 up-heaving 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 free states 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 advocating this resolution, the south shifted its mode of defence, not by taking a position entirely new, but by attempting to refortify an old one--abandoned mainly long ago, as being unable to hold out against assault however unskillfully directed. In the debate on this resolution, the southern members of Congress silently drew off from the ground hitherto maintained by them, viz.--that Congress has no power by the constitution to abolish slavery in the District.

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 unwittingly but explicitly, conceded the main point argued in the preceding pages, and surrendered the whole question at issue between them and the petitioners for abolition in the District.

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 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 what soever 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 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 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 resolution makes virtually 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 counteract the policy, or discredit 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. 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 on any declarations of the legislatures of Maryland and Virginia, 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, Chases, Martins, and Jennifers, of those states and times. The assertion rests on itself alone! Mr. Clay guesses 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 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 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 know their wishes by intuition, and always take them for law? 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 Maryland and Virginia notions of constitutional power, abrogate no grant, and that to plead them 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 Maryland and Virginia constructed their acts of cession with this clause before their eyes, and declared those acts made "in pursuance" of it. Those states knew that the U.S. 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 lead them to eschew vague implications, and to resort to stipulations. They knew, moreover, 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, every ticket would turn up a prize. Toil, suffering, blood, and treasure outpoured like water over a whole generation, counselled them to make all sure by the use of explicit terms, and well chosen words, and just enough of them. The Constitution of the United States, with its amendments, those of the individual states, the national treaties, and the public documents of the general and state governments at that period, show the universal conviction of legislative bodies, that nothing should be left to be "implied," when great public interests were at stake.

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 studied the free mood of those times in its bearings on slavery--proofs of which are given in scores on the preceding pages--[See pp. 25-37.] can be made to believe that the people of the United States would have re-modelled 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 the republic? Who can believe that Virginia made such a condition, or cherished such a purpose, when Washington, Jefferson, Wythe, Patrick Henry, St. George Tucker, and all her most illustrious men, were at that moment advocating the abolition of slavery by law; when Washington had said, two years before, that 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 Dr. 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, 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 stipulate for the perpetuity of slavery under the exclusive legislation of Congress? and that too when at the same session every one of her delegation voted for the abolition of slavery in the North West Territory; a territory which she herself had ceded to the Union, and surrendered along with it her jurisdiction over 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--must we adopt the monstrous conclusion that those states designed to bind Congress never to terminate it?--that it was the intent of the Ancient Dominion thus to bind the United States by an "implied faith," and that when the national government accepted the cession, she did solemnly thus plight her troth, and that Virginia did then so understand it? Verily, honorable senators must suppose themselves deputed to do our thinking for us as well as our legislation, or rather, that they are themselves absolved from such drudgery by virtue of their office!

Another absurdity of this "implied faith" dogma 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. 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 could only bind itself. It had no authority to bind a subsequent Congress. Could the members of one Congress say to those 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" 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! 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, 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 within their own bounds. 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!

What a "glorious Union" this doctrine of Mr. Clay bequeaths to the people of the United States! We have been permitted to set up at our own expense, and on our 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 our 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!

A careful analysis of Mr. Clay's resolution and of the discussions upon it, will convince every fair mind that this 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 original design of setting apart a federal district had been for the sole accommodation of the south, there could hardly have been higher assumption or louder vaunting. The only 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, 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 within 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 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 as legislators and lawyers, scorned 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 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.]

This profound legal opinion 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 all the States, not of two twenty-sixths of them. 3d. That it was thus put under their control "for THEIR OWN benefit." 4th. It asserts 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, which are but indirectly interested. 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.

But these are only the initiatory absurdities of this "good faith implied." Mr. Clay's resolution aptly illustrates 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 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 Mr. Clay 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 and Wise, are now found to be wholly at fault, and the chanticleer rhetoric of Messrs. Glascock and Garland stalks featherless and crest-fallen. For the resolution sweeps by the board all those stereotyped common-places, such as "Congress a local Legislature," "consent of the District," "bound to consult the wishes of the District," with other catch phrases, 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 will lead us. If "implied faith" to Maryland and Virginia restrains Congress from the abolition of slavery in the District, because those states have not abolished their slavery, it requires Congress to do in the District what those states have done within their own limits, i.e., restrain others from abolishing it. Upon the same principle Congress is bound 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, 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 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 being not that Congress would maintain a system, but their system; otherwise instead of sustaining, Congress would counteract their policy--principles would be brought into action there conflicting with their system, and thus the true sprit 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 in the District, as they are 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. What Maryland does, Congress will do in the Maryland part. What Virginia does, Congress will do in the Virginia part. Though it 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, or 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."

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 north-west 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 Munroe. 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 those interested for this resolution have plunged themselves, would be to make a quarto inventory. We decline the task; and in conclusion merely add, that Mr. Clay, in presenting it, 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 early 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, Roberts 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, Vermont, and Connecticut, 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 whereof 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 by weariness and pain the folly of entrusting to Delilahs the secret and the custody of his strength.

Have the free States bound themselves by an oath never to profit by the lessons of experience? If lost to reason, are they dead to instinct also? Can nothing rouse them to cast about for self preservation? And shall a life of tame surrenders be terminated by suicidal sacrifice?

A "COMPROMISE!" Bitter irony! Is the plucked and hoodwinked North to be wheedled by the sorcery of another Missouri compromise? A compromise in which the South gained all, and the North lost all, and lost it forever. A compromise which embargoed the free laborer of the North and West, and, clutched at the staff he leaned upon, to turn it into a bludgeon and fell him with its stroke. A compromise which wrested from liberty her boundless birthright domain, stretching westward to the sunset, while it gave to slavery loose reins and a free coarse, from the Mississippi to the Pacific.

The resolution, as it finally passed, is here inserted.

"Resolved, That the interference by the citizens of any of the states, with the view to the abolition of slavery in the District, is endangering the rights and security of the people of the District; and that any act or measure of Congress designed to abolish slavery in the District, would be a violation of the faith implied in the cessions by the states of Virginia and Maryland, a just cause of alarm to the people of the slaveholding states, and have a direct and inevitable tendency to disturb and endanger the Union."

The vote upon the resolution stood as follows:

Yeas.--Messrs. Allen, Bayard, Benton, Black, Buchanan, Brown, Calhoun, Clay of Alabama, Clay of Kentucky, Clayton, Crittenden, Cuthbert, Fulton, Grundy, Hubbard, King, Lumpkin, Lyon, Nicholas. Niles, Norvell, Pierce, Preston, Rives, Roane, Robinson, Sevier, Smith, of Connecticut, Strange, Tallmadge, Tipton, Walker, White, Williams, Wright, Young--36.

Nays.--Messrs. DAVIS, KNIGHT, McKEAN, MORRIS, PRENTISS, RUGGLES, SMITH, of Indiana, SWIFT, WEBSTER--9.

* * * * *

ANTI-SLAVERY EXAMINER. No. 6.
NARRATIVE OF JAMES WILLIAMS, AN AMERICAN SLAVE.

ONE DOLLAR PER 100] [143 NASSAU ST. N.Y.
* * * * *

PREFACE.

"American Slavery," said the celebrated John Wesley, "is the vilest beneath the sun!" Of the truth of this emphatic remark, no other proof is required, than an examination of the statute books of the American slave states. Tested by its own laws, in all that facilitates and protects the hateful process of converting a man into a "chattel personal;" in all that stamps the law-maker, and law-upholder with meanness and hypocrisy, it certainly has no present rival of its "bad eminence," and we may search in vain the history of a world's despotism for a parallel. The civil code of Justinian never acknowledged, with that of our democratic despotisms, the essential equality of man. The dreamer in the gardens of Epicurus recognized neither in himself, nor in the slave who ministered to his luxury, the immortality of the spiritual nature. Neither Solon nor Lycurgus taught the inalienability of human rights. The Barons of the Feudal System, whose maxim was emphatically that of Wordsworth's robber,

"That he should take who had the power,
And he should keep who can."

while trampling on the necks of their vassals, and counting the life of a man as of less value than that of a wild beast, never appealed to God for the sincerity of their belief, that all men were created equal. It was reserved for American slave-holders to present to the world the hideous anomaly of a code of laws, beginning with the emphatic declaration of the inalienable rights of all men to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and closing with a deliberate and systematic denial of those rights, in respect to a large portion of their countrymen; engrossing on the same parchment the antagonist laws of liberty and tyranny. The very nature of this unnatural combination has rendered it necessary that American slavery, in law and in practice, should exceed every other in severity and cool atrocity. The masters of Greece and Rome permitted their slaves to read and write and worship the gods of paganism in peace and security, for there was nothing in the laws, literature, or religion of the age to awaken in the soul of the bondman a just sense of his rights as a man. But the American slaveholder cannot be thus lenient. In the excess of his benevolence, as a political propagandist, he has kindled a fire for the oppressed of the old world to gaze at with hope, and for crowned heads and dynasties to tremble at; but a due regard to the safety of his "peculiar institution," compels him to put out the eyes of his own people, lest they too should see it. Calling on all the world to shake off the fetters of oppression, and wade through the blood of tyrants to freedom, he has been compelled to smother, in darkness and silence, the minds of his own bondmen, lest they too should hear and obey the summons, by putting the knife to his own throat.--Proclaiming the truths of Divine Revelation, and sending the Scriptures to the four quarters of the earth, he has found it necessary to maintain heathenism at home by special enactments; and to make the second offence of teaching his slaves the message of salvation punishable with death!

What marvel then that American slavery even on the statute book assumes the right to transform moral beings into brutes:[[A]] that it legalizes man's usurpation of Divine authority; the substitution of the will of the master, for the moral government of God: that it annihilates the rights of conscience; debars from the enjoyment of religious rights and privileges by specific enactments; and enjoins disobedience to the Divine lawgiver: that it discourages purity and chastity, encourages crime, legalizes concubinage; and, while it places the slave entirely in the hands of his master, provides no real protection for his life or his person.

[Footnote [A]: The cardinal principle of slavery, that a slave is not to be ranked among sentient beings, but among things, as an article of property, a chattel personal, obtains as undoubted law, in all the slave states. (Judge Stroud's Sketch of Slave Laws, p. 22.)]

But it may be said, that these laws afford no certain evidence of the actual condition of the slaves: that, in judging the system by its code, no allowance is made for the humanity of individual masters. It was a just remark of the celebrated Priestley, that "no people ever were found to be better than their laws, though many have been known to be worse." All history and common experience confirm this. Besides, admitting that the legal severity of a system may be softened in the practice of the humane, may it not also be aggravated by that of the avaricious and cruel?

But what are the testimony and admissions of slaveholders themselves on this point? In an Essay published in Charleston, S.C., in 1822, and entitled "A Refutation of the Calumnies circulated against the Southern and Western States," by the late Edwin C. Holland, Esq., it is stated, that "all slaveholders have laid down non-resistance, and perfect and uniform obedience to their orders as fundamental principles in the government of their slaves:" that this is "a necessary result of the relation," and "unavoidable." Robert J. Turnbull, Esq., of South Carolina, in remarking upon the management of slaves, says, "The only principle upon which may authority over them, (the slaves,) can be maintained is fear, and he who denies this has little knowledge of them." To this may be added the testimony of Judge Ruffin, of North Carolina, as quoted in Wheeler's Law of Slavery, p. 217. "The slave, to remain a slave, must feel that there is no appeal from his master. No man can anticipate the provocations which the slave would give, nor the consequent wrath of the master, prompting him to BLOODY VENGEANCE on the turbulent traitor, a vengeance generally practised with impunity by reason of its privacy."

In an Essay on the "improvement of negroes on plantations," by Rev. Thomas S. Clay, a slaveholder of Bryan county, Georgia, and Printed at the request of the Georgia Presbytery, in 1833, we are told "that the present economy of the slave system is to get all you can from the slave, and give him in return as little as will barely support him in a working condition!" Here, in a few words, the whole enormity of slavery is exposed to view: "to get all you can from the slave"--by means of whips and forks and irons--by every device for torturing the body, without destroying its capability of labor; and in return give him as little of his coarse fare as will keep him, like a mere beast of burden, in a "working condition;" this is slavery, as explained by the slaveholder himself. Mr. Clay further says: "Offences against the master are more severely punished than violations of the law of God, a fault which affects the slave's personal character a good deal. As examples we may notice, that running away is more severely punished than adultery." "He (the slave) only knows his master as lawgiver and executioner, and the sole object of punishment held up to his view, is to make him a more obedient and profitable slave."

Hon. W.B. Seabrook, in an address before the Agricultural Society of St. John's, Colleton, published by order of the Society, at Charleston, in 1834, after stating that "as Slavery exists in South Carolina, the action of the citizens should rigidly conform to that state of things:" and, that "no abstract opinions of the rights of man should be allowed in any instance to modify the police system of a plantation," proceeds as follows. "He (the slave) should be practically treated as a slave; and thoroughly taught the true cardinal principle on which our peculiar institutions are founded, viz.; that to his owner he is bound by the law of God and man; and that no human authority can sever the link which unites them. The great aim of the slaveholder, then, should be to keep his people in strict subordination. In this, it may in truth be said, lies his entire duty." Again, in speaking of the punishments of slaves, he remarks: "If to our army the disuse of THE LASH has been prejudicial, to the slaveholder it would operate to deprive him of the MAIN SUPPORT of his authority. For the first class of offences, I consider imprisonment in THE STOCKS[[A]] at night, with or without hard labor by day, as a powerful auxiliary in the cause of good government." "Experience has convinced me that there is no punishment to which the slave looks with more horror, than that upon which I am commenting, (the stocks,) and none which has been attended with happier results."

[Footnote [A]: Of the nature of this punishment in the stocks, something may be learned by the following extract of a letter from a gentleman in Tallahassee, Florida, to the editor of the Ohio Atlas, dated June 9, 1835: "A planter, a professer of religion, in conversing upon the universality of whipping, remarked, that a planter in G____, who had whipped a great deal, at length got tired of it, and invented the following excellent method of punishment, which I saw practised while I was paying him a visit. The negro was placed in a sitting position, with his hands made fast above his head, and his feet in the stocks, so that he could not move any part of the body. The master retired, intending to leave him till morning, but we were awakened in the night by the groans of the negro, which were so doleful that we feared he was dying. We went to him, and found him covered with a cold sweat, and almost gone. He could not have lived an hour longer. Mr. ---- found the 'stocks' such an effective punishment, that it almost superseded the whip.">[

There is yet another class of testimony quite as pertinent as the foregoing, which may at any time be gleaned from the newspapers of the slave states--the advertisements of masters for their runaway slaves, and casual paragraphs coldly relating cruelties, which would disgrace a land of Heathenism. Let the following suffice for a specimen:

* * * * *

To the Editors of the Constitutionalist.

Aiken, S.C., Dec. 20, 1836.

I have just returned from an inquest I held over the dead body of a negro man, a runaway, that was shot near the South Edisto, in this district, (Barnwell,) on Saturday morning last. He came to his death by his own recklessness. He refused to be taken alive; and said that other attempts to take him had been made, and he was determined that he would not be taken. When taken he was nearly naked--had a large dirk or knife and a heavy club. He was at first, (when those who were in pursuit of him found it absolutely necessary,) shot at with small shot, with the intention of merely crippling him. He was shot at several times, and at last he was so disabled as to be compelled to surrender. He kept in the run of a creek in a very dense swamp all the time that the neighbors were in pursuit of him. As soon as the negro was taken, the best medical aid was procured, but he died on the same evening. One of the witnesses at the inquisition stated that the negro boy said that he was from Mississippi, and belonged to so many persons he did not know who his master was; but again he said his master's name was Brown. He said his own name was Sam; and when asked by another witness who his master was, he muttered something like Augusta or Augustine. The boy was apparently above 35 or 40 years of age--about six feet high--slightly yellow in the face--very long beard or whiskers--and very stout built, and a stern countenance; and appeared to have been run away a long time.

WILLIAM H. PRITCHARD,

Coroner, (ex officio,) Barnwell Dist., S.C.

The Mississippi and other papers will please copy the above.--Georgia
Constitutionalist.

* * * * *

$100 REWARD.--Ran away from the subscriber, living on Herring Bay, Ann Arundel county, Md., on Saturday, 28th January, negro man Elijah, who calls himself Elijah Cook, is about 21 years of age, well made, of a very dark complexion has an impediment in his speech, and a scar on his left cheek bone, apparently occasioned by a shot.

J. SCRIVENER. Annapolis (Md.) Rep., Feb., 1837.

* * * * *

$40 REWARD.--Ran away from my residence near Mobile, two negro men, Isaac and Tim. Isaac is from 25 to 30 years old, dark complexion, scar on the right side of the head, and also one on the right side of the body, occasioned by BUCK SHOT. Tim is 22 years old, dark complexion, scar on the right cheek, as also another on the back of the neck. Captains and owners of steamboats, vessels, and water crafts of every description, are cautioned against taking them on board under the penalty of the law; and all other persons against harboring or in any manner favoring the escape of said negroes under like penalty.

Mobile, Sept. 1. SARAH WALSH. Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser, Sept. 29, 1837.

* * * * *

$200 REWARD.--Ran away from the subscriber, about three years ago, a certain negro man named Ben, (commonly known by the name of Ben Fox.) He is about five feet five or six inches high, chunky made, yellow complexion, and has but one eye. Also, one other negro, by the name of Rigdon, who ran away on the 8th of this month. He is stout made, tall, and very black, with large lips.

I will give the reward of one hundred dollars for each of the above negroes, to be delivered to me or confined in the jail of Lenoir or Jones county, or for the killing of them so that I can see them. Masters of vessels and all others are cautioned against harboring, employing, or carrying them away, under the penalty of the law.

W.D. COBB. Lenoir county, N.C., Nov. 12, 1836.

* * * * *

"A negro who had absconded from his master, and for who a reward was offered of $100, has been apprehended and committed to prison in Savannah, Georgia. The Editor who states the fact, adds, with as much coolness as though there was no barbarity in the matter, that he did not surrender until he was considerably maimed by the dogs[[A]] that had been set on him,--desperately fighting them, one of which he cut badly with a sword."

New-York Commercial Advertiser, June, 8, 1827.

[Footnote [A]: In regard to the use of bloodhounds, for the recapture of runaway slaves, we insert the following from the New-York Evangelist, being an extract of a letter from Natchez (Miss.) under date of January 31, 1835: "An instance was related to me in Claiborne County, in Mississippi. A runaway was heard about the house in the night. The hound was put upon his track, and in the morning was found watching the dead body of the negro. The dogs are trained to this service when young. A negro is directed to go into the woods and secure himself upon a tree. When sufficient time has elapsed for doing this, the hound is put upon his track. The blacks are compelled to worry them until they make them their implacable enemies: and it is common to meet with dogs which will take no notice of whites, though entire strangers, but will suffer no blacks beside the house servants to enter the yard.">[

* * * * *

From the foregoing evidence on the part of slaveholders themselves, we gather the following facts:

1. That perfect obedience is required of the slave--that he is made to feel that there is no appeal from his master.

2. That the authority of the master is only maintained by fear--a "reign of terror."

3. That "the economy of slavery is to get all you can from the slave, and give him in return as little as will barely support him in a working condition."

4. That runaway slaves may be shot down with impunity by any white person.

5. That masters offer rewards for "killing" their slaves, "so that they may see them!"

6. That slaves are branded with hot irons, and very much scarred with the whip.

7. That iron collars, with projecting prongs, rendering it almost impossible for the wearer to lie down, are fastened upon the necks of women.

8. That the LASH is the MAIN SUPPORT of the slaveholder's authority: but, that the stocks are "a powerful auxiliary" to his government.

9. That runaway slaves are chased with dogs--men hunted like beasts of prey.

Such is American Slavery in practice.

The testimony thus far adduced is only that of the slaveholder and wrong-doer himself: the admission of men who have a direct interest in keeping out of sight the horrors of their system. It is besides no voluntary admission. Having "framed iniquity by law," it is out of their power to hide it. For the recovery of their runaway property, they are compelled to advertise in the public journals, and that it may be identified, they are under the necessity of describing the marks of the whip on the backs of women, the iron collars about the neck--the gun-shot wounds, and the traces of the branding-iron. Such testimony must, in the nature of things, be partial and incomplete. But for a full revelation of the secrets of the prison-house, we must look to the slave himself. The Inquisitors of Goa and Madrid never disclosed the peculiar atrocities of their "hall of horrors." It was the escaping heretic, with his swollen and disjointed limbs, and bearing about him the scars of rack and fire, who exposed them to the gaze and abhorrence of Christendom.

The following pages contain the simple and unvarnished story of an AMERICAN SLAVE,--of one, whose situation, in the first place, as a favorite servant in an aristocratic family in Virginia; and afterwards as the sole and confidential driver on a large plantation in Alabama, afforded him rare and peculiar advantages for accurate observation of the practical workings of the system. His intelligence, evident candor, and grateful remembrance of those kindnesses, which in a land of Slavery, made his cup of suffering less bitter; the perfect accordance of his statements, (made at different times, and to different individuals),[[B]] one with another, as well as those statements themselves, all afford strong confirmation of the truth and accuracy of his story. There seems to have been no effort, on his part to make his picture of Slavery one of entire darkness--he details every thing of a mitigating character which fell under his observation; and even the cruel deception of his master has not rendered him unmindful of his early kindness.

[Footnote [B]: The reader is referred to JOHN G. WHITTIER, of Philadelphia, or to the following gentlemen, who have heard the whole, or a part of his story, from his own lips: Emmor Kimber, of Kimberton, Pa., Lindley Coates, of Lancaster Co., do.; James Mott, of Philadelphia, Lewis Tappan, Elizur Wright Jun., Rev. Dr. Follen, and James G. Birney, of New York. The latter gentleman, who was a few years ago, a citizen of Alabama, assures us that the statements made to him by James Williams, were such as he had every reason to believe, from his own knowledge of slavery in that State.]

The editor is fully aware that he has not been able to present this affecting narrative in the simplicity and vivid freshness with which it fell from the lips of the narrator. He has, however, as closely as possible, copied his manner, and in many instances his precise language. THE SLAVE HAS SPOKEN FOR HIMSELF. Acting merely as his amanuensis, he has carefully abstained from comments of his own.[[A]]

[Footnote [A]: As the narrator was unable to read or write, it is quite possible that the orthography of some of the names of individuals mentioned in his story may not be entirely correct. For instance, the name of his master may have been either Larrimer, or Larrrimore.]

The picture here presented to the people of the free states, is, in many respects, a novel one. We all know something of Virginia and Kentucky Slavery. We have heard of the internal slave trade--the pangs of separation--the slave ship with its "cargo of despair" bound for the New-Orleans market--the weary journey of the chained Coffle to the cotton country. But here, in a great measure, we have lost sight of the victims of avarice and lust. We have not studied the dreadful economy of the cotton plantation, and know but little of the secrets of its unlimited despotism.

But in this narrative the scenes of the plantation rise before us, with a distinctness which approaches reality. We hear the sound of the horn at daybreak, calling the sick and the weary to toil unrequited. Woman, in her appealing delicacy and suffering, about to become a mother, is fainting under the lash, or sinking exhausted beside her cotton row. We hear the prayer for mercy answered with sneers and curses. We look on the instruments of torture, and the corpses of murdered men. We see the dogs, reeking hot from the chase, with their jaws foul with human blood. We see the meek and aged Christian scarred with the lash, and bowed down with toil, offering the supplication of a broken heart to his Father in Heaven, for the forgiveness of his brutal enemy. We hear, and from our inmost hearts repeat the affecting interrogatory of the aged slave, "How long, Oh Lord! how long!"

The editor has written out the details of this painful narrative with feelings of sorrow. If there be any who feel a morbid satisfaction in dwelling upon the history of outrage and cruelty, he at least is not one of them. His taste and habits incline him rather to look to the pure and beautiful in our nature--the sunniest side of humanity--its kindly sympathies--its holy affections--its charities and its love. But, it is because he has seen that all which is thus beautiful and excellent in mind and heart, perishes in the atmosphere of slavery: it is because humanity in the slave sinks down to a level with the brute and in the master gives place to the attributes of a fiend--that he has not felt at liberty to decline the task. He cannot sympathize with that abstract and delicate philanthropy, which hesitates to bring itself in contact with the sufferer, and which shrinks from the effort of searching out the extent of his afflictions. The emblem of Practical Philanthropy is the Samaritan stooping over the wounded Jew. It must be no fastidious hand which administers the oil and the wine, and binds up the unsightly gashes.

Believing, as he does, that this narrative is one of truth; that it presents an unexaggerated picture of Slavery as it exists on the cotton plantations of the South and West, he would particularly invite to its perusal, those individuals, and especially those professing Christians at the North, who have ventured to claim for such a system, the sanction and approval of the Religion of Jesus Christ. In view of the facts here presented, let these men seriously inquire of themselves, whether in advancing such a claim, they are not uttering a higher and more audacious blasphemy than any which ever fell from the pens of Voltaire and Paine. As if to cover them with confusion, and leave them utterly without excuse for thus libelling the character of a just God, these developments are making, and the veil rising, which for long years of sinful apathy has rested upon the abominations of American Slavery. Light is breaking into it's dungeons, disclosing the wreck of buried intellect--of hearts broken--of human affections outraged--of souls ruined. The world will see it as God has always seen it; and when He shall at length make inquisition for blood, and His vengeance kindle over the habitations of cruelty, with a destruction more terrible than that of Sodom and Gomorrah, His righteous dealing will be justified of man, and His name glorified among the nations, and there will be a voice of rejoicing in Earth and in Heaven. ALLELUIA!--THE PROMISE IS FULFILLED!--FOR THE SIGHING OF THE POOR AND THE OPPRESSION OF THE NEEDY, GOD HATH RISEN!

It is the earnest desire of the Editor, that this narrative may be the means, under God, of awakening in the hearts of all who read it, a sympathy for the oppressed which shall manifest itself in immediate, active, self-sacrificing exertion for their deliverance; and, while it excites abhorrence of his crimes, call forth pity for the oppressor. May it have the effect to prevent the avowed and associated friends of the slave, from giving such an undue importance to their own trials and grievances, as to forget in a great measure the sorrows of the slave. Let its cry of wo, coming up from the plantations of the South, suppress every feeling of selfishness in our hearts. Let our regret and indignation at the denial of the right of petition, be felt only because we are thereby prevented from pleading in the Halls of Congress for the "suffering and the dumb." And let the fact, that we are shut out from half the territory of our country, be lamented only because it prevents us from bearing personally to the land of Slavery, the messages of hope for the slave, and of rebuke and warning for the oppressor.

New-York, 24th 1st mo., 1838.

* * * * *

NARRATIVE

I was born in Powhatan County, Virginia, on the plantation of George Larrimore. Sen., at a place called Mount Pleasant, on the 16th of May 1805. May father was the slave of an orphan family whose name I have forgotten, and was under the care of a Mr. Brooks, guardian of the family. He was a native of Africa, and was brought over when a mere child, with his mother. My mother was the slave of George Larrimore, Sen. She was nearly white, and is well known to have been the daughter of Mr. Larrimore himself. She died when myself and my twin brother Meshech were five years of age--I can scarcely remember her. She had in all eight children, of whom only five are now living. One, a brother, belongs to the heirs of the late Mr. Brockenbrough of Charlottesville; of whom he hires his time, and pays annually $120 for it. He is a member of the Baptist church, and used to preach occasionally. His wife is a free woman from Philadelphia, and being able to read and write, taught her husband. The whites do not know that he can write, and have often wondered that he could preach so well without learning. It is the practice when a church is crowded, to turn the blacks out of their seats. My brother did not like this, and on one occasion preached a sermon from a text, showing that all are of one blood. Some of the whites who heard it, said that such preaching would raise an insurrection among the negroes. Two of them told him that if he would prove his doctrine by Scripture, they would let him go, but if he did not, he should have nine and thirty lashes. He accordingly preached another sermon and spoke with a great deal of boldness. The two men who were in favor of having him whipped, left before the sermon was over; those who remained, acknowledged that he had proved his doctrine, and preached a good sermon, and many of them came up and shook hands with him. The two opposers, Scott and Brockley, forbid my brother, after this, to come upon their estates. They were both Baptists, and my brother had before preached to their people. During the cholera at Richmond, my brother preached a sermon, in which he compared the pestilence to the plagues, which afflicted the Egyptian slaveholders, because they would not let the people go. After the sermon some of the whites threatened to whip him. Mr. Valentine, a merchant on Shocko Hill prevented them; and a young lawyer named Brooks said it was wrong to threaten a man for preaching the truth. Since the insurrection of Nat. Turner he has not been allowed to preach much.

My twin brother was for some time the property of Mr. John Griggs, of Richmond, who sold him about three years since, to an Alabama Cotton Planter, with whom he staid one year, and then ran away and in all probability escaped into the free states or Canada, as he was seen near the Maryland line. My other brother lives in Fredericksburg, and belongs to a Mr. Scott, a merchant formerly of Richmond. He was sold from Mr. Larrimore's plantation because his wife was a slave of Mr. Scott. My only sister is the slave of John Smith, of King William. Her husband was the slave of Mr. Smith, when the latter lived in Powhatan county, and when he removed to King William, she was taken with her husband.

My old master, George Larrimore, married Jane Roane, the sister of a gentleman named John Roane, one of the most distinguished men in Virginia, who in turn married a sister of my master. One of his sisters married a Judge Scott, and another married Mr. Brockenbrough of Charlottesville. Mr. Larrimore had three children; George, Jane, and Elizabeth. The former was just ten days older than myself; and I was his playmate and constant associate in childhood. I used to go with him to his school, and carry his books for him as far as the door, and meet him there when the school was dismissed. We were very fond of each other, and frequently slept together. He taught me the letters of the alphabet, and I should soon have acquired a knowledge of reading, had not George's mother discovered her son in the act of teaching me. She took him aside and severely reprimanded him. When I asked him, not long after, to tell me more of what he had learned at school, he said that his mother had forbidden him to do so any more, as her father had a slave, who was instructed in reading and writing, and on that account proved very troublesome. He could, they said, imitate the hand-writing of the neighboring planters, and used to write passes and certificates of freedom for the slaves, and finally wrote one for himself, and went off to Philadelphia, from whence her father received from him a saucy letter, thanking him for his education.

The early years of my life went by pleasantly. The bitterness of my lot I had not yet realized. Comfortably clothed and fed, kindly treated by my old master and mistress and the young ladies, and the playmate and confidant of my young master, I did not dream of the dark reality of evil before me.

When he was fourteen years of age, master George went to his uncle Brockenbrough's at Charlottesville, as a student of the University. After his return from College, he went to Paris and other parts of Europe, and spent three or four years in study and travelling. In the mean time I was a waiter in the house, dining-room servant, &c. My old master visited and received visits from a great number of the principal families in Virginia. Each summer, with his family, he visited the Sulphur Springs and the mountains. While George was absent, I went with him to New-Orleans, in the winter season, on account of his failing health. We spent three days in Charleston, at Mr. McDuffie's, with whom my master was on intimate terms. Mr. McDuffie spent several days on one occasion at Mt. Pleasant. He took a fancy to me, and offered my master the servant whom he brought with him and $500 beside, for me. My master considered it almost an insult, and said after he was gone, that Mr. McDuffie needed money to say the least, as much as he did.

He had a fine house in Richmond, and used to spend his winters there with his family, taking me with him. He was not there much at other times, except when the Convention of 1829 for amending the State Constitution, was held in that city. He had a quarrel with Mr. Neal of Richmond Co., in consequence of some remarks upon the subject of Slavery. It came near terminating in a duel. I recollect that during the sitting of the Convention, my master asked me before several other gentlemen, if I wished to be free and go back to my own country. I looked at him with surprise, and inquired what country?

"Africa, to be sure," said he, laughing.

I told him that was not my country--that I was born in Virginia.

"Oh yes," said he, "but your father was born in Africa." He then said that there was a place on the African coast called Liberia where a great many free blacks were going; and asked me to tell him honestly, whether I would prefer to be set free on condition of going to Africa, or live with him and remain a slave. I replied that I had rather be as I was.

I have frequently heard him speak against slavery to his visitors. I heard him say on one occasion, when some gentlemen were arguing in favor of sending the free colored people to Africa, that this was as really the black man's country as the white's, and that it would be as humane to knock the free negroes, at once, on the head, as to send them to Liberia. He was a kind man to his slaves. He was proud of them, and of the reputation he enjoyed of feeding and clothing them well. They were as near as I can judge about 300 in number. He never to my knowledge sold a slave, unless to go with a wife or husband, and at the slave's own request. But all except the very wealthiest planters in his neighborhood sold them frequently. John Smoot of Powhatan Co. has sold a great number. Bacon Tait[[A]] used to be one of the principal purchasers. He had a jail at Richmond where he kept them. There were many others who made a business of buying and selling slaves. I saw on one occasion while travelling with my master, a gang of nearly two hundred men fastened with chains. The women followed unchained and the children in wagons. It was a sorrowful sight. Some were praying, some crying, and they all had a look of extreme wretchedness. It is an awful thing to a Virginia slave to be sold for the Alabama and Mississippi country. I have known some of them to die of grief, and others to commit suicide, on account of it.

[Footnote [A]: Bacon Tait's advertisement of "new and commodious buildings" for the keeping of negroes, situated at the corner of 15th and Carey streets, appears in the Richmond Whig of Sept. 1896.--EDITOR.]

In my seventeenth year, I was married to a girl named Harriet, belonging to John Gatewood, a planter living about four miles from Mr. Pleasant. She was about a year younger than myself--was a tailoress, and used to cut out clothes for the hands.

We were married by a white clergyman named Jones; and were allowed to or three weeks to ourselves, which we spent in visiting and other amusements.

The field hands are seldom married by a clergyman. They simply invite their friends together, and have a wedding party.

Our two eldest children died in their infancy: two are now living. The youngest was only two months old when I saw him for the last time. I used to visit my wife on Saturday and Sunday evenings.

My young master came back from Europe in delicate health. He was advised by his physicians to spend the winter in New-Orleans, whither he accordingly went, taking me with him. Here he became acquainted with a French lady of one of the first families in the city. The next winter he also spent in New-Orleans, and on his third visit, three years after his return from Europe, he was married to the lady above mentioned. In May he returned to Mt. Pleasant, and found the elder Larrimore on his sick bed, from which he never rose again. He died on the 14th of July. There was a great and splendid funeral, as his relatives and friends were numerous.

His large property was left principally in the hands of his widow until her decease, after which it was to be divided among the three children. In February Mrs. Larrimore also died. The administrators upon the estate were John Green, Esq., and Benjamin Temple. My young master came back from Europe in delicate health. He way advised by his physicians to spend the winter in New-Orleans, whither he accordingly went, taking me with him. Here he became acquainted with a French lady of one of the first families in the city. The next winter he also spent in New-Orleans, and on his third visit, three years after his return from Europe, he was married to the lady above mentioned. In May he returned to Mt. Pleasant, and found the elder Larrimore on his sick bed, from which he never rose again. He died on the 14th of July. There was a great and splendid funeral, as his relatives and friends were numerous.

His large property was left principally in the hands of his widow until her decease, after which it was to be divided among the three children. In February Mrs. Larrimore also died. The administrators upon the estate were John Green, Esq., and Benjamin Temple.

My young mistresses, Jane and Elizabeth, were very kind to the servants. They seemed to feel under obligations to afford them every comfort and gratification, consistent with the dreadful relation of ownership which they sustained towards them. Whipping was scarcely known on the estate; and, whenever it did take place, it was invariably against the wishes of the young ladies.

But the wife of master George was of a disposition entirely the reverse. Feeble, languid, and inert, sitting motionless for hours at her window, or moving her small fingers over the strings of her guitar, to some soft and languishing air, she would have seemed to a stranger incapable of rousing herself from that indolent repose, in which mind as well as body participated. But, the slightest disregard of her commands--and sometimes even the neglect to anticipate her wishes, on the part of the servants; was sufficient to awake her. The inanimate and delicate beauty then changed into a stormy virago. Her black eyes flawed and sparkled with a snaky fierceness, her full lips compressed, and her brows bent and darkened. Her very voice, soft and sweet when speaking to her husband, and exquisitely fine and melodious, when accompanying her guitar, was at such times, shrill, keen, and loud. She would order the servants of my young mistresses upon her errands, and if they pleaded their prior duty to obey the calls of another, would demand that they should be forthwith whipped for their insolence. If the young ladies remonstrated with her, she met them with a perfect torrent of invective and abuse. In these paroxysms of fury she always spoke in French, with a vehemence and volubility, which strongly contrasted with the calmness and firmness of the young ladies. She would boast of what she had done in New-Orleans, and of the excellent discipline of her father's slaves. She said she had gone down in the night to the cell under her father's house, and whipped the slaves confined there with her own hands. I had heard the same thing from her father's servants at New-Orleans, when I was there with my master. She brought with her from New-Orleans a girl named Frances. I have seen her take her by the ear, lead her up to the side of the room, and beat her head against it. At other times she would snatch off her slipper and strike the girl on her face and head with it.

She seldom manifested her evil temper before master George. When she did, he was greatly troubled, and he used to speak to his sisters about it. Her manner towards him was almost invariably that of extreme fondness. She was dark complexioned, but very beautiful; and the smile of welcome with which she used to meet him was peculiarly fascinating. I did not marvel that he loved her; while at the same time, in common with all the house servants, I regarded her as a being possessed with an evil spirit,--half woman, and half fiend.