Part 44 (2/2)
Finally, that the grant in question is to be interpreted according to the obvious import of its _terms_, is proved by the fact, that Virginia proposed an amendment to the United States' Const.i.tution at the time of its adoption, providing that this clause ”should be so construed as to give power only over the _police and good government_ of said District,”
_which amendment was rejected._
The former part of the clause under consideration, ”Congress shall have power to exercise _exclusive_ legislation,” gives _sole_ jurisdiction, and the latter part, ”in all cases whatsoever,” defines the _extent_ of it. Since, then, Congress is the _sole_ legislature within the District, and since its power is limited only by the checks common to all legislatures, it follows that what the law-making power is intrinsically competent to do _any_ where, Congress is competent to do in the District of Columbia. Having disposed of preliminaries, we proceed to state and argue the _real question_ at issue.
IS THE LAW-MAKING POWER COMPETENT TO ABOLISH SLAVERY WHEN NOT RESTRICTED IN THAT PARTICULAR BY CONSt.i.tUTIONAL PROVISIONS--or, IS THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY WITHIN THE APPROPRIATE SPHERE OF LEGISLATION?
In every government, absolute sovereignty exists _somewhere_. In the United States it exists primarily with the _people_, and _ultimate_ sovereignty _always_ exists with them. In each of the States, the legislature possesses a _representative_ sovereignty, delegated by the people through the Const.i.tution--the people thus committing to the legislature a portion of their sovereignty, and specifying in their const.i.tutions the amount and the conditions of the grant. That the _people_ in any state where slavery exists, have the power to abolish it, none will deny. If the legislature have not the power, it is because _the people_ have reserved it to themselves. Had they lodged with the legislature ”power to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever,” they would have parted with their sovereignty over the legislation of the State, and so far forth the legislature would have become _the people_, clothed with all their functions, and as such competent, _during the continuance of the grant_, to do whatever the people might have done before the surrender of their power: consequently, they would have the power to abolish slavery. The sovereignty of the District of Columbia exists _somewhere_--where is it lodged? The citizens of the District have no legislature of their own, no representation in Congress, and no political power whatever. Maryland and Virginia have surrendered to the United States their ”full and absolute right and entire sovereignty,” and the people of the United States have committed to Congress by the Const.i.tution, the power to ”exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over such District.”
Thus, the sovereignty of the District of Columbia, is shown to reside solely in the Congress of the United States; and since the power of the people of a state to abolish slavery within their own limits, results from their entire sovereignty within that state, so the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District, results from its entire _sovereignty_ within the District. If it be objected that Congress can have no more power over the District, than was held by the legislatures of Maryland and Virginia, we ask what clause in the const.i.tution graduates the power of Congress by the standard of a state legislature?
Was the United States' const.i.tution worked into its present shape under the measuring line and square of Virginia and Maryland? and is its power to be bevelled down till it can run in the grooves of state legislation?
There is a deal of prating about const.i.tutional power over the District, as though Congress were indebted for it to Maryland and Virginia. The powers of those states, whether few or many, prodigies or nullities, have nothing to do with the question. As well thrust in the powers of the Grand Lama to join issue upon, or twist papal bulls into const.i.tutional tether, with which to curb congressional action. The Const.i.tution of the United States gives power to Congress, and takes it away, and _it alone_. Maryland and Virginia adopted the Const.i.tution _before_ they ceded to the United States the territory of the District.
By their acts of cession, they abdicated their own sovereignty over the District, and thus made room for that provided by the United States'
const.i.tution, which sovereignty was to commence as soon as a cession of territory by states, and its acceptance by Congress, furnished a sphere for its exercise. That the abolition of slavery is within the sphere of legislation, I argue,
2. FROM THE FACT, THAT SLAVERY, AS A LEGAL SYSTEM, IS THE CREATURE OF LEGISLATION. The law, by _creating_ slavery, not only affirmed its _existence_ to be within the sphere and under the control of legislation, but equally, the _conditions_ and _terms_ of its existence, and the _question_ whether or not it _should_ exist. Of course legislation would not travel _out_ of its sphere, in abolis.h.i.+ng what is _within_ it, and what was recognised to be within it, by its own act.
Cannot legislatures repeal their own laws? If law can take from a man his rights, it can give them back again. If it can say, ”your body belongs to your neighbor,” it can say, ”it belongs to _yourself_.” If it can annul a man's right to himself, held by express grant from his Maker, and can create for another an _artificial_ t.i.tle to him, can it not annul the artificial t.i.tle, and leave the original owner to hold himself by his original t.i.tle?
3. THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY HAS ALWAYS BEEN CONSIDERED WITHIN THE APPROPRIATE SPHERE OF LEGISLATION. Almost every civilized nation has abolished slavery by law. The history of legislation since the revival of letters, is a record crowded with testimony to the universally admitted competency of the law-making power to abolish slavery. It is so manifestly an attribute not merely of absolute sovereignty, but even of ordinary legislation, that the competency of a legislature to exercise it, may well nigh be reckoned among the legal axioms of the civilized world. Even the night of the dark ages was not dark enough to make this invisible.
The Abolition decree of the great council of England was pa.s.sed in 1102.
The memorable Irish decree, ”that all the English slaves in the whole of Ireland, be immediately emanc.i.p.ated and restored to their former liberty,” was issued in 1171. Slavery in England was abolished by a general charter of emanc.i.p.ation in 1381. Pa.s.sing over many instances of the abolition of slavery by law, both during the middle ages and since the reformation, we find them multiplying as we approach our own times.
In 1776 slavery was abolished in Prussia by special edict. In St.
Domingo, Cayenne, Guadeloupe, and Martinique, in 1794, where more than 690,000 slaves were emanc.i.p.ated by the French government. In Java, 1811; in Ceylon, 1815; in Buenos Ayres, 1816; in St. Helena, 1819; in Colombia, 1821; by the Congress of Chili in 1821; in Cape Colony, 1823; in Malacca, 1825; in the southern provinces of Birmah, 1826; in Bolivia, 1826; in Peru, Guatemala, and Monte Video, 1828, in Jamaica, Barbadoes, Bermudas, Bahamas, the Mauritius, St. Christophers, Nevis, the Virgin Islands, Antigua, Montserrat, Dominica, St. Vincents, Grenada, Berbice, Tobago, St. Lucia, Trinidad, Honduras, Demarara, and the Cape of Good Hope, on the 1st of August, 1834. But waving details, suffice it to say, that England, France, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, Prussia, and Germany, have all and often given their testimony to the competency of the legislative power to abolish slavery. In our own country, the Legislature of Pennsylvania pa.s.sed an act of abolition in 1780, Connecticut, in 1784; Rhode Island, 1784; New-York, 1799; New-Jersey, in 1804; Vermont, by Const.i.tution, in 1777; Ma.s.sachusetts, in 1780; and New Hamps.h.i.+re, in 1784.
When the competency of the law-making power to abolish slavery, has thus been recognised every where and for ages, when it has been embodied in the highest precedents, and celebrated in the thousand jubilees of regenerated liberty, is it an achievement of modern discovery, that such a power is a nullity?--that all these acts of abolition are void, and that the millions disenthralled by them, are, either themselves or their posterity, still legally in bondage?
4. LEGISLATIVE POWER HAS ABOLISHED SLAVERY IN ITS PARTS. The law of South Carolina prohibits the working of slaves more than fifteen hours in the twenty-four. In other words, it takes from the slaveholder his power over nine hours of the slave's time daily; and if it can take nine hours it may take twenty-four. The laws of Georgia prohibit the working of slaves on the first day of the week; and if they can do it for the first, they can for the six following.
The law of North Carolina prohibits the ”immoderate” correction of slaves. If it has power to prohibit immoderate correction, it can prohibit _moderate_ correction--_all_ correction, which would be virtual emanc.i.p.ation; for, take from the master the power to inflict pain, and he is master no longer. Cease to ply the slave with the stimulus of fear; and he is free.
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