Webster's on the reception of abolition memorials, may be taken as
universal exponents of the sentiments of northern statesmen as to the
power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia.
An explicit declaration, that an "_overwhelming majority_" of the
_present_ Congress concede the power to abolish slavery in the District,
has just been made by Hon. Robert Barnwell Rhett, a member of Congress
from South Carolina, in a letter published in the Charleston Mercury of
Dec. 27, 1837. The following is an extract:
"The time has arrived when we must have new guaranties under the
constitution, or the Union must be dissolved. _Our views of the
constitution are not those of the majority_. AN OVERWHELMING
MAJORITY _think that by the constitution, Congress may abolish
slavery in the District of Columbia--may abolish the slave trade
between the States; that is, it may prohibit their being carried
out of the State in which they are--and prohibit it in all the
territories, Florida among them. They think_, NOT WITHOUT STRONG
REASONS, _that the power of Congress extends to all of these
subjects_."
_Direct testimony_ to show that the power of Congress to abolish slavery
in the District, has always till recently been _universally conceded_,
is perhaps quite superfluous. We subjoin, however, the following:
The Vice-President of the United States in his speech on the Missouri
question, quoted above, after contending that the restriction of slavery
in Missouri would be unconstitutional, declares, that the power of
Congress over slavery in the District "COULD NOT BE QUESTIONED." In the
speech of Mr. Smyth, of Va., also quoted above, he declares the power of
Congress to abolish slavery in the District to be "UNDOUBTED."
Mr. Sutherland, of Penn., in a speech in the House of Representatives,
on the motion to print Mr. Pinckney's Report, is thus reported in the
Washington Globe, of May 9th, '36. "He replied to the remark that the
report conceded that Congress had a right to legislate upon the subject
in the District of Columbia, and said that SUCH A RIGHT HAD NEVER BEEN,
TILL RECENTLY, DENIED."
The American Quarterly Review, published at Philadelphia, with a large
circulation and list of contributors in the slave states, holds the
following language in the September No. 1833, p. 55: "Under this
'exclusive jurisdiction,' granted by the constitution, Congress has
power to abolish slavery and the slave trade in the District of
Columbia. It would hardly be necessary to state this as a distinct
proposition, had it not been occasionally questioned. The truth of the
assertion, however, is too obvious to admit of argument--and we believe
HAS NEVER BEEN DISPUTED BY PERSONS WHO ARE FAMILIAR WITH THE
CONSTITUTION."
OBJECTIONS TO THE FOREGOING CONCLUSIONS CONSIDERED.
We now proceed to notice briefly the main arguments that have been
employed in Congress, and elsewhere against the power of Congress to
abolish slavery in the District. One of the most plausible is; that "the
conditions on which Maryland and Virginia ceded the District to the
United States, would be violated, if Congress should abolish slavery
there." The reply to this is, that Congress had no power to _accept_ a
cession coupled with conditions restricting that "power of exclusive
legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District," which was
given it by the constitution.
To show the futility of the objection, we insert here the acts of
cession. The cession of Maryland was made in November, 1788, and is as
follows: "An act to cede to Congress a district of ten miles square in
this state for the seat of the government of the United States."
"Be it enacted, by the General Assembly of Maryland, that the
representatives of this state in the House of Representatives of the
Congress of the United States, appointed to assemble at New-York, on the
first Wednesday of March next, be, and they are hereby authorized and
required on the behalf of this state, to cede to the Congress of the
United States, any district in this state, not exceeding ten miles
square, which the Congress may fix upon, and accept for the seat of
government of the United States." Laws of Md., v. 2., c. 46.
The cession of Virginia was made on the 3d of December, 1788, in the
following words:
"Be it enacted by the General Assembly, That a tract of country, not
exceeding ten miles square, or any lesser quantity, to be located within
the limits of the State, and in any part thereof, as Congress may, by
law, direct, shall be, and the same is hereby forever ceded and
relinquished to the Congress and Government of the United States, in
full and absolute right, and exclusive jurisdiction, as well of soil, as
of persons residing or to reside thereon, pursuant to the tenor and
effect of the eighth section of the first article of the government of
the constitution of the United States."
But were there no provisos to these acts? The Maryland act had _none_.
The Virginia act had this proviso: "Sect. 2. Provided, that nothing
herein contained, shall be construed to vest in the United States any
right of property in the soil, or to affect the rights of individuals
_therein_, otherwise than the same shall or may be transferred by such
individuals to the United States."
This specification touching the soil was merely definitive and
explanatory of that clause in the act of cession, "_full and absolute
right_." Instead of restraining the power of Congress on _slavery_ and
other subjects, it even gives it freer course; for exceptions to _parts_
of a rule, give double confirmation to those parts not embraced in the
exceptions. If it was the _design_ of the proviso to restrict
congressional action on the subject of _slavery_, why is the _soil
alone_ specified? As legal instruments are not paragons of economy in
words, might not "John Doe," out of his abundance, and without spoiling
his style, have afforded an additional word--at least a hint--that
slavery was _meant_, though nothing was _said_ about it?
But again, Maryland and Virginia, in their acts of cession, declare them
to be "in pursuance of" that clause of the constitution which gives to
Congress "exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over" the ten
miles square--thus, instead of _restricting_ that clause, both States
_confirm_ it. Now, their acts of cession either accorded with that
clause of the constitution, or they conflicted with it. If they
conflicted with it, _accepting_ the cessions was a violation of the
constitution. The fact that Congress accepted the cessions, proves that
in its view their _terms_ did not conflict with its constitutional grant
of power. The inquiry whether these acts of cession were consistent or
inconsistent with the United States' constitution, is totally irrelevant
to the question at issue. What saith the CONSTITUTION? That is the
question. Not, what saith Virginia, or Maryland, or--equally to the
point--John Bull! If Maryland and Virginia had been the authorized
interpreters of the constitution for the Union, these acts of cession
could hardly have been magnified more than they have been recently by
the southern delegation in Congress. A true understanding of the
constitution can be had, forsooth, only by holding it up in the light of
Maryland and Virginia legislation!
We are told, again, that those States would not have ceded the District
if they had supposed the constitution gave Congress power to abolish
slavery in it.
This comes with an ill grace from Maryland and Virginia. They _knew_ the
constitution. They were parties to it. They had sifted it clause by
clause, in their State conventions. They had weighed its words in the
balance--they had tested them as by fire; and finally, after long
pondering, they _adopted_ the constitution. And _afterward_, self-moved,
they ceded the ten miles square, and declared the cession made "in
pursuance of" that oft-cited clause, "Congress shall have power to
exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over such
District." And now verily "they would not have ceded if they had
_supposed_!" &c. Cede it they _did_, and in "full and absolute right
both of soil and persons." Congress accepted the cession--state power
over the District ceased, and congressional power over it commenced--and
now, the sole question to be settled is, _the amount of power over the
District, lodged in Congress by the constitution_. The constitution--THE
CONSTITUTION--that is the point. Maryland and Virginia "suppositions"
must be potent suppositions to abrogate a clause of the United States'
Constitution! That clause either gives Congress power to abolish slavery
in the District, or it does _not_--and that point is to be settled, not
by state "suppositions," nor state usages, nor state legislation, but
_by the terms of the clause themselves_.
Southern members of Congress, in the recent discussions, have conceded
the power of a contingent abolition in the District, by suspending it
upon the _consent_ of the people. Such a doctrine from _declaimers_ like
Messrs. Alford, of Georgia, and Walker, of Mississippi, would excite no
surprise; but that it should be honored with the endorsement of such men
as Mr. Rives and Mr. Calhoun, is quite unaccountable. Are attributes of
_sovereignty_ mere creatures of _contingency_? Is delegated _authority_
mere conditional _permission_? Is a _constitutional power_ to be
exercised by those who hold it, only by popular _sufferance?_ Must it
lie helpless at the pool of public sentiment, waiting the gracious
troubling of its waters? Is it a lifeless corpse, save only when popular
"consent" deigns to puff breath into its nostrils? Besides, if the
consent of the people of the District be necessary, the consent of the
_whole_ people must be had--not that of a majority, however large.
Majorities, to be authoritative, must be _legal_--and a legal majority
without legislative power, or right of representation, or even the
electoral franchise, would be truly an anomaly! In the District of
Columbia, such a thing as a majority in a legal sense is unknown to law.
To talk of the power of a majority, or the will of a majority there, is
mere mouthing. A majority? Then it has an authoritative will--and an
organ to make it known--and an executive to carry it into effect--Where
are they? We repeat it--if the consent of the people of the District be
necessary, the consent of _every one_ is necessary--and _universal_
consent will come only with the Greek Kalends and a "perpetual motion."
A single individual might thus _perpetuate_ slavery in defiance of the
expressed will of a whole people. The most common form of this fallacy
is given by Mr. Wise, of Virginia, in his speech, February 16, 1835, in
which he denied the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the
District, unless the inhabitants owning slaves petitioned for it!!
Southern members of Congress at the present session 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 forthcoming, and that without
stint.
First, then, I affirm that the North ratified the constitution,
"supposing" that slavery had begun to wax old, and would speedily vanish
away, and especially that the abolition of the slave trade, which by the
constitution was to be surrendered to Congress after twenty years, would
cast it headlong.
Would the North have adopted the constitution, giving three-fifths of
the "slave property" a representation, if it had "supposed" that the
slaves would have increased from half a million to two millions and a
half by 1838--and that the census of 1840 would give to the slave states
thirty representatives of "slave property?"
If they had "supposed" that this representation would have controlled
the legislation of the government, and carried against the North every
question vital to its interests, would Hamilton, Franklin, Sherman,
Gerry, Livingston, Langdon, and Rufus King have been such madmen, as to
sign the constitution, and the Northern States such suicides as to
ratify it? Every self-preserving instinct would have shrieked at such an
infatuate immolation. At the adoption of the United States constitution,
slavery was regarded as a fast waning system. This conviction was
universal. Washington, Jefferson, Henry, Grayson, Tucker, Madison,
Wythe, Pendleton, Lee, Blair, Mason, Page, Parker, Randolph, Iredell,
Spaight, Ramsey, Pinkney, Martin, McHenry, Chase, and nearly all the
illustrious names south of the Potomac, proclaimed it before the sun. A
reason urged in the convention that formed the United States
constitution, why the word slave should not be used in it, was, that
_when slavery should cease_, there might remain upon the National
Charter no record that it had ever been. (See speech of Mr. Burrill, of
R.I., on the Missouri question.)
I now proceed to show by testimony, that at the date of the United
States constitution, and for several years before and after that period,
slavery was rapidly on the wane; that the American Revolution with the
great events preceding, accompanying, and following it, had wrought an
immense and almost universal change in the public sentiment of the
nation on the subject, powerfully impelling it toward the entire
abolition of the system--and that it was the _general belief_ that
measures for its abolition throughout the Union, would be commenced by
the individual States generally before the lapse of many years. A great
mass of testimony establishing this position might be presented, but
narrow space, and the importance of speedy publication, counsel brevity.
Let the following proofs suffice. First, a few dates as points of
observation.
The first _general_ Congress met in 1774. The revolutionary war
commenced in '75. Independence was declared in '76. The articles of
confederation 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 Granville Sharpe, May 1, 1773, says "A
spirit of humanity and religion begins to awaken in several of the
colonies in favor of the poor negroes. Great events have been brought
about by small beginnings. _Anthony 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_," &c.
In 1776, Dr. Hopkins, then at the head of New England divines, in "An
Address to the owners of negro slaves in the American colonies," says:
"The conviction of the unjustifiableness of this practice (slavery) has
been _increasing_, and _greatly spreading of late_, and _many_ who have
had slaves, have found themselves so unable to justify their own conduct
in holding them in bondage, as to be induced to _set them at liberty_. *
* * * Slavery is, _in every instance_, wrong, unrighteous,
and oppressive--a very great and crying sin--_there being nothing of the
kind equal to it on the face of the earth._"
The same year the American Congress issued a solemn MANIFESTO to the
world. These were its first words: "We hold these truths to be
self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by
their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." _Once_, these were words
of power; _now_, "a rhetorical flourish."
The 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_; and so long as
we have any idea of divine _justice_, we must associate that of _human
freedom_. It is _conceded on all hands, that the right to be free_ CAN
NEVER BE ALIENATED."
Extract from the Pennsylvania act for the abolition of slavery, passed
March 1, 1780: * * "We conceive that it is our duty, and we rejoice
that it is in our power, to extend a portion of that freedom to others
which has been extended to us. Weaned by a long course of experience
from those narrow prejudices and partialities we had imbibed, we find
our hearts enlarged with kindness and benevolence towards men of all
conditions and nations: * * * Therefore be it enacted, that no
child born hereafter be a slave," &c.
Jefferson, in his Notes on Virginia, written just before the close of
the Revolutionary War, says: "I think a change already perceptible since
the origin of the present revolution. The spirit of the master is
abating, that of the slave is rising from the dust, his condition
mollifying, _the way I hope preparing under the auspices of heaven_, FOR
A TOTAL EMANCIPATION."
In a letter to Dr. Price, of London, who had just published a pamphlet
in favor of the abolition of slavery, Mr. Jefferson, then minister at
Paris, (August 7, 1785,) says: "From the mouth to the head of the
Chesapeake, _the bulk of the people will approve of your pamphlet in
theory_, and it will find a respectable minority ready to _adopt it in
practice_--a minority which, for weight and worth of character,
_preponderates against the greater number_." Speaking of Virginia, he
says: "This is the next state to which we may turn our eyes for the
interesting spectacle of justice in conflict with avarice and
oppression,--a conflict in which THE SACRED SIDE IS GAINING DAILY
RECRUITS. Be not, therefore, discouraged--what you have written will do
a _great deal of good_; and could you still trouble yourself with our
welfare, no man is more able to give aid to the laboring side. The
College of William and Mary, since the remodelling of its plan, is the
place where are collected together all the young men of Virginia, under
preparation for public life. They are there under the direction (most of
them) of a Mr. Wythe, one of the most virtuous of characters, and _whose
sentiments on the subject of slavery are unequivocal._ I am satisfied,
if you could resolve to address an exhortation to those young men with
all that eloquence of which you are master, that _its influence on the
future decision of this important question would be great, perhaps
decisive._ Thus, you see, that so far from thinking you have cause to
repent of what you have done, _I wish you to do more, and wish it on an
assurance of its effect._"--Jefferson's Posthumous Works, vol. 1, p.
268.
In 1786, John Jay drafted and signed a petition to the Legislature of
New York, on the subject of slavery, beginning with these words: "Your
memorialists being deeply affected by the situation of those, who,
although FREE BY THE LAW OF GOD, are held in slavery by the laws of the
State," &c. This memorial bore also the signatures of the celebrated
Alexander Hamilton; Robert R. Livingston, afterward Secretary of Foreign
Affairs of the United States, and Chancellor of the State of New-York;
James Duane, Major of the City of New-York, and many others of the most
eminent individuals in the State.
In the preamble of an instrument, by which Mr. Jay emancipated a slave
in 1784, is the following passage:
"Whereas, the children of men are by nature equally free, and cannot,
without injustice, be either reduced to or HELD in slavery."
In his letter while Minister at Spain, in 1786, he says, speaking of the
abolition of slavery: "Till America comes into this measure, her prayers
to heaven will be IMPIOUS. I believe God governs the world; and I
believe it to be a maxim in his, as in our court, that those who ask for
equity _ought to do it._"