To abolish slavery, is to take from no rightful owner his property; but to "establish justice" between two parties. To emanc.i.p.ate 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 cla.s.s of men from seizing upon another cla.s.s, 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 ent.i.tled to _legal protection_; and that power, avarice, and l.u.s.t, 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 const.i.tution 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 const.i.tution gives power to protect _one_ cla.s.s 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 a.s.sert, and in so doing they a.s.sert 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, s.e.x, 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_ CONSt.i.tUTIONAL 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 const.i.tution; "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 ent.i.tled 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 amba.s.sadors. 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 p.r.o.nounced both by munic.i.p.al 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 const.i.tution 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 emanc.i.p.ating 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 const.i.tutional "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 a.s.sault, 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 const.i.tution, 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 pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sed in silence at such a crisis as the present; especially as the pa.s.sage 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 bra.s.s 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!_
Pa.s.sing by the resolutions generally without remark--the attention of the reader is specially solicited to Mr. Clay"s subst.i.tute 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 const.i.tution 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 a.s.sault 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 const.i.tution to abolish slavery in the District.
The pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sing 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 pet.i.tioners 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 const.i.tutionally 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 "inst.i.tutions," 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"
Const.i.tution, 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 a.s.sertion 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 Const.i.tution, 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 _a.s.sumed 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 const.i.tutions 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 const.i.tutional 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 Const.i.tution 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. Const.i.tution 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, const.i.tutions, 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 Const.i.tution of the United States, with its amendments, those of the individual states, the national treaties, and the public doc.u.ments 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 Const.i.tution; 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 Const.i.tution 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 ill.u.s.trious 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 emanc.i.p.ations 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 emanc.i.p.ated by that act of Congress, in which all her delegation with one accord partic.i.p.ated?
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 const.i.tutional grant of power would have been a _breach_ of the Const.i.tution. The Congress which accepted the cession was competent to pa.s.s a resolution pledging itself not to _use all_ the power over the District committed to it by the Const.i.tution. 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 Const.i.tution, therefore you _shall_ not? This would, have been a prohibition to do what the Const.i.tution gives power to do. Each successive Congress would still have gone to THE CONSt.i.tUTION 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 pa.s.sed, and engross them, under the t.i.tle 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 a.n.a.lysis 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 a.s.sumption 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 pa.s.sage. 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 Const.i.tution; 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 Const.i.tution, it impales upon the point of an alleged _implication_. And this is Mr. Clay"s peace-offering, to the l.u.s.t 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 const.i.tutions and charters to geographical lines, or to bend them to the purposes of a political canva.s.s. 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 const.i.tutional 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 a.s.serts, 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 a.s.serts 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 ill.u.s.trates 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 pet.i.tion 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 modic.u.m! 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. Glasc.o.c.k 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 emanc.i.p.ation_ 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 subst.i.tute 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 G.o.d 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 pa.s.sively 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," a.n.a.logy 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, "inst.i.tution," 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 _t.i.tles_ 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 pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sage 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 pet.i.tioned 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_ pet.i.tioners for the abolition of slavery in the District, and for a long time the only ones, pet.i.tioning from year to year through evil report and good report, still pet.i.tioning, 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, Ma.s.sachusetts, 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, pa.s.sed 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 grat.i.tude 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.