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 legalisation in all cases whatsoever over such
District," &c. 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 in 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 put 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, right of representation, or even the
electoral franchise, would be 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 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? Why mock it by demanding
impossibilities? 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 forth coming, 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
cast it headlong.
Would the North have adopted the constitution, giving three-fifths of
the "slave property" a representation, if it has "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, 30 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 Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin
Franklin, Roger Sherman, Elbridge Gerry, William Livingston, John
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, Patrick Henry, Grayson, St. George Tucker,
Madison, Wythe, Pendleton, Lee, Blair, Mason, Page, Parker, Edmund
Randolph, Iredell, Spaight, Ramsey, William Pinckney, Luther Martin,
James McHenry, Samuel Chase, and nearly all the illustrious names south
of the Potomac, proclaimed it before the sun, that the days of slavery
were beginning to be numbered. 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 even 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 of 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 individual States generally before the lapse of many years. A great
mass of testimony establishing this position is at hand and might be
presented, but narrow space, little time, the patience of readers, and
the importance of speedy publication, counsel brevity. Let the following
proofs suffice. First, a few dates as points of observation.
The first _general_ Congress met in 1774. The revolutionary war
commenced in '75. Independence was declared in '76. The articles of
confederacy were adopted by the thirteen states in '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 the celebrated 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. The clergy begin
to bear a public testimony against this violation of the laws of nature
and christianity. Great events have been brought about by small
beginnings. _Anthony Benezet 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 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_, marked out by infinite goodness and
wisdom as objects of a legal domination, never rightfully resistible,
however severe and oppressive, the inhabitants of these colonies might
at least require from the Parliament of Great Britain some evidence that
this dreadful authority over them has been granted to that body."
In 1776, the celebrated Dr. Hopkins, then at the head of New England
divines, published a pamphlet entitled, "An Address to the owners of
negro slaves in the American colonies," from which the following is an
extract: "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_. May this conviction soon reach every owner of slaves
in _North America!_ 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 celebrated Patrick Henry of Virginia, in a letter, of 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."
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_; as accountable
to him that made them, they must be so; and so long as we have any idea
of divine _justice_, we must associate that of _human freedom_. Whether
men can part with their liberty, is among the questions which have
exercised the ablest writers; but it is _conceded on all hands, that the
right to be free_ CAN NEVER BE ALIENATED--still less is it practicable
for one generation to mortgage the privileges of another."
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 have
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, _the way I hope preparing under the auspices of heaven_, FOR
A TOTAL EMANCIPATION, and that this is disposed, in the order of events,
to be with the consent of the masters, rather than by their
extirpation."
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, in Williamsburg, 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 the 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 wish it on an assurance of its
effect_."--Jefferson's Posthumous Works, vol. 1, p. 268.
In 1786, John jay, afterward Chief Justice of the United States, 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 signature of the celebrated Alexander
Hamilton; Robert R. Livingston, afterward 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. This is a strong expression, but it is just.
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 United States 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 Chace, Judge of the United States Supreme
Court, and Luther Martin, a member of the convention that formed the
United States 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, (the 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 are fully of opinion, that calm reflection will at last
convince the world, that the whole system of African slavery is unjust
in its nature--impolitic in its principles--and, in its consequences,
ruinous to the industry and enterprise of the citizens of these States.
From a conviction of these truths, 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 'righteousness exalteth a
nation,' and 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_, which
breathes 'peace on earth, good will to men;' lament that a practice, so
inconsistent with true policy and the inalienable rights of men, should
subsist in so enlightened an age, and among a people professing, that
all mankind are, by nature, equally entitled to freedom."
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 founded on principles
of justice and reason, wherein _life, liberty_, and the _pursuit of
happiness_, are recognised as the universal rights of men; and whilst we
are anxious to preserve these rights to ourselves, and transmit them
inviolate, to our posterity, 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. Casper Wistar, of Philadelphia;
Messrs. Foster and Tillinghast, of Rhode Island; Messrs. Ridgeley,
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
of general considerations, and indicating thus early the line of
national policy, to be pursued by the United States Government on the
subject of slavery_.