Part 40 (1/2)

The Ohio and Indiana resolutions, by taking for granted the _general_ power of Congress over the subject of slavery, do virtually a.s.sert its _special_ power within its _exclusive_ jurisdiction.

5. The power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District, has been conceded by bodies of citizens in the slave states. The pet.i.tion of eleven hundred citizens of the District of Columbia, in 1827, has been already mentioned. ”March 5, 1830, Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton presented a memorial of inhabitants of the county of Frederick, in the state of Maryland, praying that provision may be made for the gradual abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia.” Journal H.R. 1829-30, p. 358.

March 30, 1828. Mr. A.H. Shepperd, of North Carolina, presented a memorial of citizens of that state, ”praying Congress to take measures fur the entire abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia.”

Journal H.R. 1829-30, p. 379.

January 14, 1822. Mr. Rhea, of Tennessee, presented a memorial of citizens of that state, praying ”that provision may be made, whereby all slaves which may hereafter be born in the District of Columbia, shall be free at a certain period of their lives.” Journal H.R. 1821-22, p. 142.

December 13, 1824. Mr. Saunders of North Carolina, presented a memorial of citizens of that state, praying ”that measures may be taken for the gradual abolition of slavery in the United States.” Journal H.R.

1824-25, p. 27.

December 16, 1828. ”Mr. Barnard presented the memorial of the American Convention for promoting the abolition of slavery, held in Baltimore, praying that slavery may be abolished in the District of Columbia.”

Journal U.S. Senate, 1828-29, p. 24.

6. Distinguished statesmen and jurists in the slaveholding states, have conceded the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District. The testimony of Messrs. Doddridge, Powell, and Alexander, of Virginia, Chief Justice Cranch, and Judges Morsell and Van Ness, of the District, has already been given. In the debate in Congress on the memorial of the Society of Friends, in 1790, Mr. Madison, in speaking of the territories of the United States, explicitly declared, from his own knowledge of the views of the members of the convention that framed the const.i.tution, as well as from the obvious import of its terms, that in the territories ”Congress have certainly the power to regulate the subject of slavery.”

Congress can have no more power over the territories than that of ”exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever,” consequently, according to Mr. Madison, ”it has certainly the power to regulate the subject of slavery in the” _District_. In March, 1816, John Randolph introduced a resolution for putting a stop to the domestic slave trade within the District. December 12, 1827, Mr. Barney, of Maryland, presented a memorial for abolition in the District, and moved that it be printed.

Mr. McDuffie, of South Carolina, objected to the printing, but ”expressly admitted the right of Congress to grant to the people of the District any measures which they might deem necessary to free themselves from the deplorable evil.”--(See letter of Mr. Claiborne, of Mississippi, to his const.i.tuents, published in the Was.h.i.+ngton Globe, May 9, 1836.) The sentiments of Henry Clay on the subject are well known. In a speech before the U.S. Senate, in 1836, he declared the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District ”unquestionable.” Messrs.

Blair, of Tennessee, Chilton, Lyon, and Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky, A.H. Shepperd, of North Carolina, Messrs. Armstrong and Smyth, of Virginia, Messrs. Dorsey, Archer, and Barney, of Maryland, and Johns, of Delaware, with numerous others from slave states, have a.s.serted the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District. In the speech of Mr. Smyth, of Virginia, on the Missouri question, January 28, 1820, he says on this point: ”If the future freedom of the blacks is your real object, and not a mere pretence, why do you not begin _here_? Within the ten miles square, you have _undoubted power_ to exercise exclusive legislation. _Produce a bill to emanc.i.p.ate the slaves in the District of Columbia_, or, if you prefer it, to emanc.i.p.ate those born hereafter.”

To this may be added the testimony of the present Vice President of the United States, Hon. Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky. In a speech before the United States' Senate, February 1, 1820, (National Intelligencer, April 29, 1820,) he says: ”Congress has the express power stipulated by the Const.i.tution, to exercise exclusive legislation over this District of ten miles square. Here slavery is sanctioned by law. In the District of Columbia, containing a population of 30,000 souls, and probably as many slaves as the whole territory of Missouri, THE POWER OF PROVIDING FOR THEIR EMANc.i.p.aTION RESTS WITH CONGRESS ALONE. Why, then, let me ask, Mr. President, why all this sensibility--this commiseration--this heart-rending sympathy for the slaves of Missouri, and this cold insensibility, this eternal apathy, towards the slaves in the District of Columbia?”

It is quite unnecessary to add, that the most distinguished northern statesmen of both political parties, have always affirmed the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District. President Van Buren in his letter of March 6, 1836, to a committee of gentlemen in North Carolina, says, ”I would not, from the light now before me, feel myself safe in p.r.o.nouncing that Congress does not possess the power of abolis.h.i.+ng slavery in the District of Columbia.” This declaration of the President is consistent with his avowed sentiments touching the Missouri question, on which he coincided with such men as Daniel D. Tompkins, De Witt Clinton, and others, whose names are a host.[A] It is consistent also, with his recommendation in his late message on the 5th of last month, in which, speaking of the District, he strongly urges upon Congress ”a thorough and careful revision of its local government,” speaks of the ”entire dependence” of the people of the District ”upon Congress,”

recommends that a ”uniform system of local government” be adopted, and adds, that ”although it was selected as the seat of the General Government, the site of its public edifices, the depository of its archives, and the residence of officers intrusted with large amounts of public property, and the management of public business, yet it never has been subjected to, or received, that _special_ and _comprehensive_ legislation which these circ.u.mstances peculiarly demanded.”

[Footnote A: Mr. Van Buren, when a member of the Senate of New-York, voted for the following preamble and resolutions, which pa.s.sed unanimously:--Jan. 28th, 1820. ”Whereas, the inhibiting the further extension of slavery in the United States, is a subject of deep concern to the people of this state: and whereas, we consider slavery as an evil much to be deplored, and that _every const.i.tutional barrier should be interposed to prevent its further extension_: and that the const.i.tution of the United States _clearly gives congress the right_ to require new states, not comprised within the original boundary of the United States, to _make the prohibition of slavery_ a condition of their admission into the Union: Therefore,

”Resolved, That our Senators be instructed, and our members of Congress be requested, to oppose the admission as a state into the Union, of any territory not comprised as aforesaid, without making _the prohibition of slavery_ therein an indispensable condition of admission.” ]

The tenor of Senator Tallmadge's speech on the right of pet.i.tion, in the last Congress, and of Mr. 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.

After presenting this array of evidence, _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 unconst.i.tutional, adds, ”But I am at a loss to conceive why gentlemen should arouse all their sympathies upon this occasion, when they permit them to lie dormant upon the same subject, in relation to other sections of country, in which THEIR POWER COULD NOT BE QUESTIONED.” Then follows immediately the a.s.sertion of congressional power to abolish slavery in the District, as already quoted. 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 Pennsylvania, in a speech in the House of Representatives, on the motion to print Mr. Pinckney's Report, is thus reported in the Was.h.i.+ngton 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 const.i.tution, 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 a.s.sertion, however, is too obvious to admit of argument--and we believe HAS NEVER BEEN DISPUTED BY PERSONS WHO ARE FAMILIAR WITH THE CONSt.i.tUTION.”

Finally--an explicit, and unexpected admission, that an ”_over-whelming majority_” of the _present_ Congress concede the power to abolish slavery in the District, has just been made by a member of Congress from South Carolina, in a letter published in the Charleston Mercury of Dec.

27, well known as the mouth-piece of Mr. Calhoun. The following is an extract:

”The time has arrived when we must have new guarantees under the const.i.tution, or the union must be dissolved. _Our views of the const.i.tution are not those of the majority. An overwhelming majority think that by the const.i.tution, 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_.”

In another letter, the same correspondent says:

”_The fact is, it is vain to attempt_, AS THE CONSt.i.tUTION IS NOW, _to keep the question of slavery out of the halls of Congress_,--until, by some decisive action, WE COMPEL SILENCE, or _alter the const.i.tution_, agitation and insult is our eternal fate in the confederacy.”

OBJECTIONS TO THE FOREGOING CONCLUSIONS CONSIDERED.