the government of the United States unable to grant _protection_ where
it exacts _allegiance_? It is an axiom of the civilized world, and a
maxim even with savages, that allegiance and protection are reciprocal
and correlative. Are principles powerless with us which exact homage of
barbarians? _Protection is the_ CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT _of every human
being under the exclusive legislation of Congress who has not forfeited
it by crime._
In conclusion, I argue the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the
District, from Art. 1, sec, 8, clause 1, of the constitution; "Congress
shall have power to provide for the common defence and the general
welfare of the United States." Has the government of the United States
no power under this grant, to legislate within its own exclusive
jurisdiction on subjects that vitally affect its 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 entitled 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 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 in
the District when the public safety requires it, it may surely
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, &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 ambassadors. In
this same District there are also _seven thousand slaves_. Jefferson, in
his Notes on Va. p. 241, says of slavery, that "the State permitting one
half of its citizens to trample on the rights of the other, _transforms
them into enemies_;" and Richard Henry Lee, in the Va. house of
Burgesses in 1758, declared that to those who held them, "_slaves must
be natural enemies_." Is Congress so _impotent_ that it _cannot_
exercise that right pronounced both by municipal and national law, the
most sacred and universal--the right of self-preservation and defence?
Is it shut up to the _necessity_ of keeping seven thousand "enemies" in
the heart of the nation's citadel? Does the iron fiat of the
constitution doom it to such imbecility that it _cannot_ arrest the
process that _made_ them "enemies," and still goads to deadlier hate by
fiery trials, and day by day adds others to their number? Is _this_
providing for the common defence and general welfare? If to rob men of
rights excites their hate, freely to restore them and make amends, will
win their love.
By emancipating the slaves in the District, the government of the United
States would disband an army of "enemies," and enlist "for the common
defence and general welfare," a body guard of _friends_ seven thousand
strong. In the last year, a handful of British soldiers sacked
Washington city, burned the capitol, the President's house, and the
national offices and archives; and no marvel, for thousands of the
inhabitants of the District had been "TRANSFORMED INTO ENEMIES." Would
_they_ beat back invasion? If the national government had exercised its
constitutional "power to provide for the common defence and to promote
the general welfare," by turning those "enemies" into friends, then,
instead of a hostile ambush lurking in every thicket inviting assault,
and secret foes in every house paralyzing defence, an army of allies
would have rallied in the hour of her calamity, and shouted defiance
from their munitions of rocks; whilst the banner of the republic, then
trampled in dust, would have floated securely over FREEMEN exulting
amidst bulwarks of strength.
To show that Congress can abolish slavery in the District, under the
grant of power "to provide for the common defence and to promote the
general welfare," I quote an extract from a speech of Mr. Madison, of
Va., in the first Congress under the constitution, May 13, 1789.
Speaking of the abolition of the slave trade, Mr. Madison says: "I
should venture to say it is as much for the interests of Georgia and
South Carolina, as of any state in the union. Every addition they
receive to their number of slaves tends to _weaken_ them, and renders
them less capable of self-defence. In case of hostilities with foreign
nations, they will be the means of _inviting_ attack instead of
repelling invasion. It is a necessary duty of the general government to
protect every part of the empire against danger, as well _internal_ as
external. _Every thing, therefore, which tends to increase this danger,
though it may be a local affair, yet if it involves national expense or
safety, it becomes of concern to every part of the union, and is a
proper subject for the consideration of those charged with the general
administration of the government._" See Cong. Reg. vol. 1, p. 310, 11.
POSTSCRIPT
My apology for adding a _postscript_, to a discussion already perhaps
too protracted, is the fact that the preceding sheets were in the hands
of the printer, and all but the concluding pages had gone through the
press, before the passage of Mr. Calhoun's late resolutions in the
Senate of the United States. A proceeding so extraordinary,--if indeed
the time has not passed when _any_ acts of Congress in derogation of
freedom and in deference to slavery, can be deemed
extraordinary,--should not be suffered to pass in silence at such a
crisis as the present; especially as the passage of one of the
resolutions by a vote of 36 to 9, exhibits a shift of position on the
part of the South, as sudden as it is unaccountable, being nothing less
than the surrender of a fortress which until then they had defended with
the pertinacity of a blind and almost infuriated fatuity. Upon the
discussions during the pendency of the resolutions, and upon the vote,
by which they were carried, I make no comment, save only to record my
exultation in the fact there exhibited, that great emergencies are _true
touchstones_, and that henceforward, until this question is settled,
whoever holds a seat in Congress will find upon, and 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 brass of two-faced political intrigue, and _no_-faced
_non-committalism_, piercing to the dividing asunder of joints and
marrow. Be it known to every northern man who aspires to a seat in
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_!
Passing by the resolutions generally without remark--the attention of
the reader is specially solicited to Mr. Clay's substitute for Mr.
Calhoun's fifth resolution.
"Resolved, That when the District of Columbia was ceded by the
states of Virginia and Maryland to the United States, domestic
slavery existed in both of these states, including the ceded
territory, and that, as it still continues in both of them, it
could not be abolished within the District without a violation
of that good faith, which was implied in the cession and in the
acceptance of the territory; nor, unless compensation were made
to the proprietors of slaves, without a manifest infringement of
an amendment to the constitution of the United States; nor
without exciting a degree of just alarm and apprehension in the
states recognizing slavery, far transcending in mischievous
tendency, any possible benefit which could be accomplished by
the abolition."
By voting for this resolution, the south, by a simultaneous movement,
shifted its mode of defense, not so much by taking a position entirely
new, as by attempting to refortify an old one--never much trusted in,
and abandoned mainly long ago, as being unable to hold out against
assault however unskilfully directed. In the debate on this resolution,
though the southern members of Congress did not _professedly_ retreat
from the ground hitherto maintained by them--that Congress has no power
by the constitution to abolish slavery in the District--yet in the main
they silently drew off from it.
The passage of this resolution--with the vote of every southern senator,
forms a new era in the discussion of this question.
We cannot join in the lamentations of those who bewail it. We hail it,
and rejoice in it. It was as we would have had it--offered by a southern
senator, advocated by southern senators, and on the ground that it "was
no compromise"--that it embodied the true southern principle--that "this
resolution stood on as high ground as Mr. Calhoun's"--(Mr.
Preston)--"that Mr. Clay's resolution was as strong as Mr.
Calhoun's"--(Mr. Rives)--that "the resolution he (Mr. Calhoun) now
refused to support, was as strong as his own, and that in supporting it,
there was no abandonment of principle by the south."--(Mr. Walker, of
Mi.)--further, that it was advocated by the southern senators generally
as an expression of their views, and as setting the question of slavery
in the District on its _true_ ground--that finally when the question was
taken, every slaveholding senator, including Mr. Calhoun himself, voted
for the resolution.
By passing this resolution, and with such avowals, the south has
surrendered irrevocably the whole question at issue between them and the
petitioners for abolition in the District. It has, unwittingly but
explicitly, conceded the main question argued in the preceding pages.
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 _sole 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 whatsoever 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 _sole 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
explicitly admitting, that if slavery did _not_ "still continue" in
those States, Congress _could_ abolish it in the District. The same
admission is made also in the _premises_, which state that slavery
existed in those states _at the time of the cession_, &c. Admitting that
if it had _not_ existed there then, but had grown up in the District
under _United States' laws_, Congress might constitutionally abolish it.
Or that if the ceded parts of those states had been the _only_ parts in
which slaves were held under their laws, Congress might have abolished
in such a contingency also. The cession in that case leaving no slaves
in those states,--no "good faith," would be "implied" in it, nor any
"violated," by an act of abolition. The principle of the resolution
makes 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 go to counteract the
policy, or bring into disrepute the "institutions," or call in question
the usages, or even in any way ruffle the prejudices of those states, or
do what _they_ might think would unfavorably bear upon their interests;
_themselves_ of course being the judges.
But let us dissect another limb of the resolution. What is to be
understood by "that good faith which was IMPLIED?" It is of course an
admission that such a condition was not _expressed_ in the acts of
cession--that in their _terms_ there is nothing restricting the power of
Congress on the subject of slavery in the District--not a word alluding
to it, nor one inserted with such an _intent_. This "implied faith,"
then, rests on no clause or word in the United States' Constitution, or
in the acts of cession, or in the acts of Congress accepting the
cession, nor does it rest on any declarations of the legislatures of
Maryland and Virginia made at the time, or in that generation, 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,
Chaces, Martins, and Jennifers, of those states and times. The assertion
rests _on itself alone_! Mr. Clay and the other senators who voted for
the resolution, _guess_ that Maryland and Virginia supposed that
Congress would by no means _use_ the power given them by the
constitution, except in such ways as would be well pleasing in the eyes
of those states; especially as one of them was the "Ancient Dominion!"
And now after the lapse of half a century, this _assumed expectation_ of
Maryland and Virginia, the existence of which is mere matter of
conjecture with the 36 senators, is conjured up and duly installed upon
the judgment-seat of final appeal, before whose nod constitutions are to
flee away, and with whom, solemn grants of power and explicit guaranties
are, when weighed in the balance, altogether lighter than vanity!
But let us 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 act
in the premises according to their wishes, and that too, without their
_making known_ their wishes? 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 even a _senatorial hypothesis_ as to
what must have been the _understanding_ of Maryland and Virginia about
congressional exercise of constitutional power, _abrogates no grant_,
and that to plead it in a court of law, would be of small service except
to jostle "their Honors'" gravity! He need not be told that the
constitution gives Congress "power to exercise exclusive legislation in
all cases whatsoever over such District." Nor that the legislatures of
Maryland and Virginia constructed their acts of cession with this clause
_before their eyes_, and that both of them declared those acts made "in
_pursuance_" of said clause. Those states were aware that the United
States in their constitution had left nothing to be "_implied_" as to
the power of Congress over the District;--an admonition quite sufficient
one would think to put them on their guard, and induce them to eschew
vague implications and resort to _stipulations_. Full well did they know
also that those were times when, in matters of high import, _nothing_
was left to be "implied." The colonies were then panting from a twenty
years' conflict with the mother country, about bills of rights,
charters, treaties, constitutions, grants, limitations, and _acts of
cession_. The severities of a long and terrible discipline had taught
them to guard at all points _legislative grants_, that their exact
import and limit might be self-evident--leaving no scope for a blind
"faith," that _somehow_ in the lottery of chances there would be no
blanks, but making all sure by the use of explicit terms, and wisely
chosen words, and _just enough_ of them. The Constitution of the United
States with its amendments, those of the individual states, the national
treaties, the public documents of the general and state governments at
that period, show the universal conviction of legislative bodies, that
when great public interest were at stake, nothing should be left to be
"implied."
Further: suppose Maryland and Virginia had expressed their "implied
faith" in _words_, and embodied it in their acts of cession as a
proviso, declaring that Congress should not "exercise exclusive
legislation in _all_ cases whatsoever over the District," but that the
"case" of _slavery_ should be an exception: who does not know that
Congress, if it had accepted the cession on those terms, would have
violated the Constitution; and who that has ever studied the free mood
of those times in its bearings on slavery--proofs of which are given in
scores on the preceding pages--can for an instant believe that the
people of the United States would have altered their Constitution for
the purpose of providing for slavery an inviolable sanctuary; that when
driven in from its outposts, and everywhere retreating discomfited
before the march of freedom, it might be received into everlasting
habitations on the common homestead and hearth-stone of this free
republic? Besides, who can believe that Virginia made such a condition,
or cherished such a purpose, when at that very moment, Washington,
Jefferson, Wythe, Patrick Henry, St. George Tucker, and almost all her
illustrious men, were advocating the abolition of slavery by law. When
Washington had said, two years before, 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 Price, three years before the
cession, had said, speaking of Virginia, "This is the next state to
which we may turn our eyes for the interesting spectacle of justice in
conflict with avarice and oppression--a conflict in which THE SACRED
SIDE IS GAINING DAILY RECRUITS;" when voluntary emancipations on the
soil were then progressing at the rate of between one and two thousand
annually, (See Judge Tucker's "Dissertation on Slavery," p. 73;) when
the public sentiment of Virginia had undergone, and was undergoing 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 stipulated for
the _perpetuity_ of slavery under the exclusive legislation of Congress?
and that too at the _same_ session of Congress when _every one_ of her
delegation voted for the abolition of slavery in the North West
Territory; a territory which she had herself ceded to Congress, and
along with it had surrendered her jurisdiction over many of her
citizens, inhabitants of that territory, who held slaves there--and
whose slaves were emancipated by that act of Congress, in which all her
delegation with one accord participated?
Now in view of the universal belief then prevalent, that slavery in this
country was doomed to short life, and especially that in Maryland and
Virginia it would be _speedily_ abolished--are we to be told that those
states _designed_ to bind Congress _never_ to terminate it? Are we to
adopt the monstrous conclusion that this was the intent of the Ancient
Dominion--thus to _bind_ the United States by an "implied faith," and
that when the United States _accepted_ the cession, she did solemnly
thus plight her troth, and that Virginia did then so _understand_ it?
Verily one would think that honorable senators supposed themselves
deputed to do our _thinking_ as well as our legislation, or rather, that
they themselves were absolved from such drudgery by virtue of their
office!