The celebrated William Pinkney, in a speech before the Maryland House of Delegates, in 1789, on the emanc.i.p.ation of slaves, said, "Sir, by the eternal principles of natural justice, _no master in the state has a right to hold his slave in bondage for a single hour_. I would as soon believe the incoherent tale of a schoolboy, who should tell me he had been frightened by a ghost, as that the grant of this permission (to emanc.i.p.ate) ought in any degree to alarm us. 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! Dishonorable to the species is the idea that they would ever prove injurious to our interests--released from the shackles of slavery, by the justice of government and the bounty of individuals--the want of fidelity and attachment would be next to impossible."
Hon. James Campbell, in an address before the Pennsylvania Society of the 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 va.s.sals into freemen._" The Convention that formed the United States"
const.i.tution being then in session, attended at 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 pa.s.sed 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 grat.i.tude, 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 Const.i.tution 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_."--p. 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 a.s.sembly 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 loosed their chains and broken their fetters; or if the difficulties and dangers of such an experiment prohibited the attempt, during the convulsions of a revolution, is it not our duty, _to embrace the first moment_ of const.i.tutional 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 consciences to reproach us?"
Mr. Faulkner, in a speech before the Virginia Legislature, Jan. 20, 1832, said:--"The idea of a gradual emanc.i.p.ation and removal of the slaves from this commonwealth, is coeval with the declaration of our independence from the British yoke. It sprung into existence during the first session of the General a.s.sembly, subsequent to the formation of your republican government. 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 ill.u.s.trious men, who, in 1777, submitted to the general a.s.sembly of this state, then in session, _a plan for the gradual emanc.i.p.ation 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 which was the late President of the United Stance, 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 G.o.ddess of liberty, we _contemplate an emanc.i.p.ation 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 princ.i.p.al object." Mr. Smilie--"I rejoice that the word (slave) is not in the Const.i.tution; 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 const.i.tutional powers." National Intelligencer, Jany. 24, 1806.
These witnesses need no vouchers to ent.i.tle them to credit--nor their testimony comments to make it intelligible--their _names_ are their _endorsers_ and their strong words their own interpreters. We wave 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 periled 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 the testimony are--The universal expectation that the _moral_ influence of Congress, of state legislatures, of seminaries of learning, of churches, of the ministers of religion, and of public sentiment widely embodied in abolition societies, would be exerted against slavery, calling forth by argument and appeal 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 slavery without ceasing and without restriction. Full well did the south know, not only that the national government would probably legislate against slavery wherever the const.i.tution 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 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 the chairman of the committee that reported the ordinance was a slaveholder--that the ordinance was enacted by Congress during the session of the convention that formed the United States Const.i.tution--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 pa.s.sed, 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 const.i.tution would _ratify_ that ordinance--as it _did_ unanimously.
A crowd of reflections, suggest by the preceding testimony, press for utterance. The right of pet.i.tion ravished and trampled by its const.i.tutional 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! Add to this "the right of peaceably a.s.sembling" 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 members 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 towards 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 const.i.tution 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 _const.i.tutional_ act; but if the legislative acts "depriving" them of "liberty" were _not_ "due process of law," then the slaves were deprived of liberty _unconst.i.tutionally_, and these acts are _void_. In that case the _const.i.tution emanc.i.p.ates 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 _unconst.i.tutionally_, and is therefore _free by the const.i.tution_. This is a.s.serted 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 be taken for public use without just compensation." Each of the state const.i.tutions 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 emanc.i.p.ate 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, the objector a.s.serts 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 const.i.tutionally impair the right of private property, or take it without compensation, it cannot const.i.tutionally, _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 _princ.i.p.al_?--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 t.i.tle to _themselves_.
What! Congress powerless to protect a man"s right to _himself_, when it can make inviolable the right to a _dog_? But, waving 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 emanc.i.p.ate 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 since every man"s right to his own body is _paramount_, he shall be protected in it." 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 cla.s.ses 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 circ.u.mstances--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 uses, 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 recognised as a qualified property by congressional acts, though previously declared "persons" by the const.i.tution. 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, prostrated at a stroke, a forest of shipping, and sank 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, a.r.s.enals, magazines, dock yards, &c., to abolish the Post Office system, the privilege of patents and copyrights, &c. 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 const.i.tution of the United States does not recognise slaves as "PROPERTY" any where, and it does not recognise them in _any sense_ in the District of Columbia. All allusions to them in the const.i.tution recognise them as "persons." Every reference to them points _solely_ to the element of _personality_; and thus, by the strongest implication, declares that the const.i.tution _knows_ them only as "persons," and _will_ not recognise them in any other light. If they escape into free States, the const.i.tution authorizes their being taken back. But how? Not as the property of an "owner," but as "persons;" and the peculiarity of the expression is a marked recognition of their _personality_--a refusal to recognise them as chattels--"persons _held_ to service." Are _oxen "held_ to service?" That can be affirmed only of _persons_. Again, slaves give political power as "persons." The const.i.tution, in settling the principle of representation, requires their enumeration in the census. How? As property? Then why not include race horses and game c.o.c.ks? Slaves, like other inhabitants, are enumerated as "persons." So by the const.i.tution, 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 ent.i.tled to counsel for their defence, to the rules of evidence, and to "due process of the law," and as _persons_ they are punished. True, they are loaded with cruel disabilities in courts of law, such as greatly obstruct and often inevitably defeat the ends of justice, yet they are still recognised as _persons_. Even in the legislation of Congress, and in the diplomacy of the general government, notwithstanding the frequent and wide departures from the integrity of the const.i.tution on this subject, slaves are not recognised as _property_ without qualification. Congress has always refused to grant compensation for slaves killed or taken by the enemy, even when these slaves had been impressed into the United States"
service. In half a score of cases since the last war, Congress has rejected such applications for compensation. Besides, both in Congressional acts, and in our national diplomacy, slaves and property are not used as convertible terms. When mentioned in treaties and state papers it is in such a way as to distinguish them from mere property, and generally by a recognition of their _personality_. In the invariable recognition of slaves as _persons_, the United States" const.i.tution 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 head of Jefferson, it is alleged that Great Britain had "waged a cruel war against _human_ nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people, carrying them into slavery, * * determined to keep up a market where MEN should be bought and sold,"--thus disdaining to make the charter of freedom a warrant for the arrest of _men_, that they might be shorn both of liberty and humanity.
The celebrated Roger Sherman, one of the committee of five appointed to draft the Declaration of Independence, and also a member of the Convention that formed the United States" Const.i.tution, said, in the first Congress after its adoption: "The const.i.tution _does not consider these persons_, (slaves,) _as a species of property_."--[Lloyd"s Cong.
Reg. v. 1, p. 313.] That the United States" Const.i.tution 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 law of Congress, if he hold slaves within the District. But no person resident within the United States" jurisdiction, and _not_ within the District, nor within a state whose laws support slavery, nor "held to service" under the laws of such state or district, having escaped therefrom, _can be held as a slave_.
Men can hold _property_ under the United States" government though residing beyond the bounds of any state, district, or territory. An inhabitant of the Wisconsin Territory can hold property there under the laws of the United States, but he cannot hold _slaves_ there under the United States" laws, nor by virtue of the United States" Const.i.tution, nor upon the ground of his United States citizenship, nor by having his domicile within the United States jurisdiction. The const.i.tution 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 acc.u.mulated--the princ.i.p.al, 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" Const.i.tution 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 pa.s.sing to heirs by descent, with the question, who shall be heirs, and what shall be the rule of distribution among them, or whether property shall be transmitted at all by descent, rather than escheat to the state--these, with statutes of limitation, and various other cla.s.ses of legislative acts, serve to ill.u.s.trate 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 into possession of the property taken from them.
The preamble of the United States" Const.i.tution 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 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 gorge upon their spoils under the license, and by the ministrations of _law_! Congress, by possessing "exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever," has a _general protective power_ for ALL the inhabitants of the District. If it has no power to protect _one_ man, it has none to protect another--none to protect _any_--and if it _can_ protect _one_ man and is _bound_ to protect him, it _can_ protect _every_ man--all men--and is _bound_ to do it. All admit the power of Congress to protect the masters in the District against their slaves.
What part of the const.i.tution gives the power? The clause so often quoted,--"power of legislation in all cases whatsoever," equally in the "_case_" of defending the blacks against the whites, as in that of defending the whites against the blacks. The power is given also by Art.
1, Sec. 8, clause 15--"Congress shall have power to suppress insurrections"--a power to protect, as well blacks against whites, as whites against blacks. If the 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, froth 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 interests? Suppose the slaves in the District should rise upon their masters, and the United States" government, in quelling the insurrection, should kill any number of them. Could their masters claim compensation of the government?
Manifestly not; even though no proof existed that the particular slaves killed were insurgents. This was precisely the point at issue between those masters, whose slaves were killed by the State troops at the time of the Southampton insurrection, and the Virginia Legislature; no evidence was brought to show that the slaves killed by the troops were insurgents; yet the Virginia Legislature decided that their masters were _not ent.i.tled to compensation_. They proceeded on the sound principle, that a government may in self protection destroy the claim of its subjects even to that which has been recognised 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 it puts in jeopardy the public weal.
Granting, for argument"s sake, that slaves are "property" in the District of Columbia--if Congress has a right to annihilate property in the District when the public safety requires it, it may surely annihilate its existence _as_ property when public safety requires it, especially if it transform into a _protection_ and _defence_ that which as _property_ periled the public interests. In the District of Columbia there are, besides the United States" Capitol, the President"s house, the national offices, &c. of the Departments of State, Treasury, War, and Navy, the General Post-office, and Patent Office. It is also the residence of the President, all the highest officers of the government, both houses of Congress, and all the foreign 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._" See 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 the time has not pa.s.sed when _any_ acts of Congress in derogation of freedom and in deference to slavery, can be deemed extraordinary,--should not be suffered to pa.s.s 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 8, exhibits a shift of position on the part of the South, as sudden as it is unaccountable, being nothing less than the surrender of a fortress which until then they had defended with the pertinacity of a blind and almost infuriated fatuity. Upon the discussions during the pendency of the resolutions, and upon the vote, by which they were carried, I make no comment, save only to record my exultation in the fact there exhibited, that great emergencies are _true touchstones_, and that henceforward, until this question is settled, whoever holds a seat in Congress will find upon, and all around him, a pressure strong enough to TEST him--a focal blaze that will find its way through the carefully adjusted cloak of fair pretension, and the sevenfold 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 Congress, that hereafter it is the destiny of congressional action on this subject, to be a MIGHTY REVELATOR--making secret thoughts public property, and proclaiming on the house-tops what is whispered in the ear--smiting off masks, and bursting open sepulchres beautiful outwardly, and heaving up to the sun their dead men"s bones. To such we say,--_Remember the Missouri Question, and the fate of those who then sold the North, and their own birthright!_
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.