The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus · Chapter 45Part 45
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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."
In 1785, the New-York Manumission Society was formed. John Jay was chosen its first President, and held the office for 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 U.S. 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 U.S. Supreme Court, and Luther Martin, a member of the convention that formed the U.S. 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 those 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 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, 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 wherein life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, are recognized 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. Caspar Wistar, of Philadelphia; Messrs. Foster and Tillinghast, of Rhode Island; Messrs. Ridgely, 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 on general considerations, and indicating thus early the line of national policy, to be pursued by the United States' Government on the subject of slavery.
In the debates in the North Carolina Convention, Mr. Iredell, afterward a Judge of the United States' Supreme Court, said, "When the entire abolition of slavery takes place, it will be an event which must be pleasing to every generous mind and every friend of human nature." Mr. Galloway said, "I wish to see this abominable trade put an end to. I apprehend the clause (touching the slave trade) means to bring forward manumission." Luther Martin, of Maryland, a member of the convention that formed the United States Constitution, said, "We ought to authorize the General Government to make such regulations as shall be thought most advantageous for the gradual abolition of slavery, and the emancipation of the slaves which are already in the States." Judge Wilson, of Pennsylvania, one of the framers of the constitution, said, in the Pennsylvania convention of '87, [Deb. Pa. Con. p. 303, 156:] "I consider this (the clause relative to the slave trade) as laying the foundation for banishing slavery out of this country. It will produce the same kind of gradual change which was produced in Pennsylvania; the new states which are to be formed will be under the control of Congress in this particular, and slaves will never be introduced among them. It presents us with the pleasing prospect that the rights of mankind will be acknowledged and established throughout the Union. Yet the lapse of a few years, and Congress will have power to exterminate slavery within our borders." In the Virginia convention of '87, Mr. Mason, author of the Virginia constitution, said, "The augmentation of slaves weakens the States, and such a trade is diabolical in itself, and disgraceful to mankind. As much as I value a union of all the states, I would not admit the southern states, (i.e., South Carolina and Georgia,) into the union, unless they agree to a discontinuance of this disgraceful trade." Mr. Tyler opposed with great power the clause prohibiting the abolition of the slave trade till 1808, and said, "My earnest desire is, that it shall be handed down to posterity that I oppose this wicked clause." Mr. Johnson said, "The principle of emancipation has begun since the revolution. Let us do what we will, it will come round."—[Deb. Va. Con. p. 463.] Patrick Henry, arguing the power of Congress under the United States' constitution to abolish slavery in the States, said, in the same convention, "Another thing will contribute to bring this event (the abolition of slavery) about. Slavery is detested. We feel its fatal effects; we deplore it with all the pity of humanity."—[Deb. Va. Con. p. 431.] In the Mass. Con. of '88, Judge Dawes said, "Although slavery is not smitten by an apoplexy, yet it has received a mortal wound, and will die of consumption."—[Deb. Mass. Con. p. 60.] General Heath said that, "Slavery was confined to the States now existing, it could not be extended. By their ordinance, Congress had declared that the new States should be republican States, and have no slavery."—p. 147.
In the debate, in the first Congress, February 11th and 12th, 1789, on the petitions of the Society of Friends, and the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, Mr. Parker, of Virginia, said, "I cannot help expressing the pleasure I feel in finding so considerable a part of the community attending to matters of such a momentous concern to the future prosperity and happiness of the people of America. I think it my duty, as a citizen of the Union, to espouse their cause."
Mr. Page, of Virginia, (afterward Governor)—"Was in favor of the commitment; he hoped that the designs of the respectable memorialists would not be stopped at the threshold, in order to preclude a fair discussion of the prayer of the memorial. With respect to the alarm that was apprehended, he conjectured there was none; but there might be just cause, if the memorial was not taken into consideration. He placed himself in the case of a slave, and said, that on hearing that Congress had refused to listen to the decent suggestions of a respectable part of the community, he should infer, that the general government, from which was expected great good would result to EVERY CLASS of citizens, had shut their ears against the voice of humanity, and he should despair of any alleviation of the miseries he and his posterity had in prospect; if any thing could induce him to rebel, it must be a stroke like this, impressing on his mind all the horrors of despair. But if he was told, that application was made in his behalf, and that Congress were willing to hear what could be urged in favor of discouraging the practice of importing his fellow-wretches, he would trust in their justice and humanity, and wait the decision patiently."
Mr. Scott of Pennsylvania: "I cannot, for my part, conceive how any person can be said to acquire a property in another. Let us argue on principles countenanced by reason, and becoming humanity. I do not know how far I might go, if I was one of the judges of the United States, and those people were to came before me and claim their emancipation, but I am sure I would go as far as I could."
Mr. Burke, of South Carolina, said, "He saw the disposition of the House, and he feared it would he referred to a committee, maugre all their opposition."
Mr. Smith of South Carolina, said, "That on entering into this government, they (South Carolina and Georgia) apprehended that the other states, * * would, from motives of humanity and benevolence, be led to vote for a general emancipation."
In the debate, at the same session, May 13th, 1789, on the petition of the Society of Friends respecting the slave trade, Mr. Parker, of Virginia, said, "He hoped Congress would do all that lay in their power to restore to human nature its inherent privileges. The inconsistency in our principles, with which we are justly charged should be done away."
Mr. Jackson, of Georgia, said, "IT WAS THE FASHION OF THE DAY TO FAVOR THE LIBERTY OF THE SLAVES. * * * * Will Virginia set her negroes free? When this practice comes to be tried, then the sound of liberty will lose those charms which make it grateful to the ravished ear."