The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus · Chapter 48Part 48
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But perhaps we shall be told, that the "implied faith" in the acts of cession of Maryland and Virginia was not that Congress should never abolish slavery in the District, but that it should not do it until they had done it within their bounds! Verily this "faith" comes little short of the faith of miracles! "A good rule that works both ways." First, Maryland and Virginia have "good faith" that Congress will not abolish until they do; and then just as "good faith" that Congress will abolish when they do! Excellently accommodated! Did those States suppose that Congress would legislate over the national domain, the common jurisdiction of all, for Maryland and Virginia alone? And who, did they suppose, would be judges in the matter?—themselves merely? or the whole Union?
This "good faith implied in the cession" is no longer of doubtful interpretation. The principle at the bottom of it, when fairly stated, is this:—That the Government of the United States are bound in "good faith" to do in the District of Columbia, without demurring, just what and when, Maryland and Virginia do in their own States. In short, that the general government is eased of all the burdens of legislation within its exclusive jurisdiction, save that of hiring a scrivener to copy off the acts of the Maryland and Virginia legislatures as fast as they are passed, and engross them, under the title of "Laws of the United States, for the District of Columbia!" A slight additional expense would also be incurred in keeping up an express between the capitols of those States and Washington city, bringing Congress from time to time its "instructions" from head quarters—instructions not to be disregarded without a violation of that "good faith implied in the cession," &c.
This sets in strong light the advantages of "our glorious Union," if the doctrine of Mr. Clay and the thirty-six Senators be orthodox. The people of the United States have been permitted to set up at their own expense, and on their own territory, two great sounding boards called "Senate Chamber" and "Representatives' Hall," for the purpose of sending abroad "by authority" national echoes of state legislation!—permitted also to keep in their pay a corps of pliant national musicians, with peremptory instructions to sound on any line of the staff according as Virginia and Maryland may give the sovereign key note!
Though this may have the seeming of mere raillery, yet an analysis of the resolution and of the discussions upon it, will convince every fair mind that it is but the legitimate carrying out of the principle pervading both. They proceed virtually upon the hypothesis that the will and pleasure of Virginia and Maryland are paramount to those of the Union. If the main design of setting apart a federal district had been originally the accommodation of Maryland, Virginia, and the south, with the United States as an agent to consummate the object, there could hardly have been higher assumption or louder vaunting. The sole object of having such a District was in effect totally perverted in the resolution of Mr. Clay, and in the discussions of the entire southern delegation, upon its passage. Instead of taking the ground, that the benefit of the whole Union was the sole object of a federal district, that it was designed to guard and promote the interests of all the states, and that it was to be legislated over for this end—the resolution proceeds upon an hypothesis totally the reverse. It takes a single point of state policy, and exalts it above NATIONAL interests, utterly overshadowing them; abrogating national rights; making void a clause of the Constitution; humbling the general government into a subject—crouching for favors to a superior, and that too on its own exclusive jurisdiction. All the attributes of sovereignty vested in Congress by the Constitution it impales upon the point of an alleged implication. And this is Mr. Clay's peace-offering, to appease the lust of power and the ravenings of state encroachment! A "compromise," forsooth! that sinks the general Government on its own territory into a mere colony, with Virginia and Maryland for its "mother country!" It is refreshing to turn from these shallow, distorted constructions and servile cringings, to the high bearing of other southern men in other times; men, who in their character of legislators and lawyers, disdained to accommodate their interpretations of constitutions and charters to geographical lines, or to bend them to the purposes of a political canvass. In the celebrated case of Cohens vs. the State of Virginia, Hon. William Pinkney, late of Baltimore, and Hon. Walter Jones, of Washington city, with other eminent constitutional lawyers, prepared an elaborate written opinion, from which the following is an extract: "Nor is there any danger to be apprehended from allowing to Congressional legislation with regard to the District of Columbia, its FULLEST EFFECT. Congress is responsible to the States, and to the people for that legislation. It is in truth the legislation of the states over a district placed under their control for their own benefit, not for that of the District, except as the prosperity of the District is involved, and necessary to the general advantage."—[Life of Pinkney, p. 612.]
The profound legal opinion, from which this is an extract, was elaborated at great length many years since, by a number of the most distinguished lawyers in the United States, whose signatures are appended to it. It is specific and to the point. It asserts, 1st, that Congressional legislation over the District, is "the legislation of the States and the people," (not of two states, and a mere fraction of the people;) 2d. "Over a District placed under their control," i.e. under the control of the whole of the States, not under the control of two twenty-sixths of them. 3d. That it was thus put under their Control "for THEIR OWN benefit," the benefit of all the States equally; not to secure special benefits to Maryland and Virginia, (or what it might be conjectured they would regard as benefits.) 4th. It concludes by asserting that the design of this exclusive control of Congress over the District was "not for the benefit of the District," except as that is connected with, and a means of promoting the general advantage. If this is the case with the District, which is directly concerned, it is pre-eminently so with Maryland and Virginia, who are but indirectly interested, and would be but remotely affected by it. The argument of Mr. Madison in the Congress of '89, an extract from which has been given on a preceding page, lays down the same principle; that though any matter "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." Cong. Reg. vol. 1. p. 310, 11.
But these are only the initiatory absurdities of this "good faith implied." The thirty-six senators aptly illustrate the principle, that error not only conflicts with truth, but is generally at issue with itself. For if it would be a violation of "good faith" to Maryland and Virginia, for Congress to abolish slavery in the District, it would be equally a violation for Congress to do it with the consent, or even at the earnest and unanimous petition of the people of the District: yet for years it has been the southern doctrine, that if the people of the District demand of Congress relief in this respect, it has power, as their local legislature, to grant it, and by abolishing slavery there, carry out the will of the citizens. But now new light has broken in! The optics of the thirty-six have pierced the millstone with a deeper insight, and discoveries thicken faster than they can be telegraphed! Congress has no power, O no, not a modicum, to help the slaveholders of the District, however loudly they may clamor for it. The southern doctrine, that Congress is to the District a mere local Legislature to do its pleasure, is tumbled from the genitive into the vocative! Hard fate—and that too at the hands of those who begat it! The reasonings of Messrs. Pinckney, Wise, and Leigh, are now found to be wholly at fault, and the chanticleer rhetoric of Messrs. Glascock and Garland stalks featherless and crest-fallen. For, Mr. Clay's resolution sweeps by the board all those stereotyped common-places, as "Congress a local Legislature," "consent of the District," "bound to consult the wishes of the District," &c. &c., which for the last two sessions of Congress have served to eke out scanty supplies. It declares, that as slavery existed in Maryland and Virginia at the time of the cession, and as it still continues in both those states, it could not be abolished in the District without a violation of 'that good faith,' &c.
But let us see where this principle of the thirty-six will lead us. If "implied faith" to Maryland and Virginia restrains Congress from the abolition of slavery in the District, it requires Congress to do in the District what those states have done within their bounds, i.e., restrain others from abolishing it. Upon the same principle Congress is bound, by the doctrine of Mr. Clay's resolution, to prohibit emancipation within the District. There is no stopping place for this plighted "faith." Congress must not only refrain from laying violent hands on slavery, itself, and see to it that the slaveholders themselves do not, but it is bound to keep the system up to the Maryland and Virginia standard of vigor!
Again, if the good faith of Congress to Virginia and Maryland requires that slavery should exist in the District, while it exists in those states, it requires that it should exist there as it exists in those states. If to abolish every form of slavery in the District would violate good faith, to abolish the form existing in those states, and to substitute a totally different one, would also violate it. The Congressional "good faith" is to be kept not only with slavery, but with the Maryland and Virginia systems of slavery. The faith of those states not being in the preservation of a system, but of their system; otherwise Congress, instead of sustaining, would counteract their policy—principles would be brought into action there conflicting with their system, and thus the true spirit of the "implied" pledge would be violated. On this principle, so long as slaves are "chattels personal" in Virginia and Maryland, Congress could not make them real estate, inseparable from the soil, as in Louisiana; nor could it permit slaves to read, nor to worship God according to conscience; nor could it grant them trial by jury, nor legalize marriage; nor require the master to give sufficient food and clothing; nor prohibit the violent sundering of families—because such provisions would conflict with the existing slave laws of Virginia and Maryland, and thus violate the "good faith implied," &c. So the principle of the resolution binds Congress in all these particulars: 1st. Not to abolish slavery in the District until Virginia and Maryland abolish. 2d. Not to abolish any part of it that exists in those states. 3d. Not to abolish any form or appendage of it still existing in those states. 4th. To abolish when they do. 5th. To increase or abate its rigors when, how, and as the same are modified by those states. In a word, Congressional action in the District is to float passively in the wake of legislative action on the subject in those states.
But here comes a dilemma. Suppose the legislation of those states should steer different courses—then there would be two wakes! Can Congress float in both? Yea, verily! Nothing is too hard for it! Its obsequiousness equals its "power of legislation in all cases whatsoever." It can float up on the Virginia tide, and ebb down on the Maryland at the same time. What Maryland does, Congress will do in the Maryland part. What Virginia does, Congress will do in the Virginia part. Though Congress might not always be able to run at the bidding of both at once, especially in different directions, yet if it obeyed orders cheerfully, and "kept in its place," according to its "good faith implied," impossibilities might not be rigidly exacted. True, we have the highest sanction for the maxim that no man can serve two masters—but if "corporations have no souls," analogy would absolve Congress on that score, or at most give it only a very small soul—not large enough to be at all in the way, as an exception to the universal rule laid down in the maxim!
In following out the absurdities of this "implied good faith," it will be seen at once that the doctrine of Mr. Clay's Resolution extends to all the subjects of legislation existing in Maryland and Virginia, which exist also within the District. Every system, "institution," law, and established usage there, is placed beyond Congressional control equally with slavery, and by the same "implied faith." The abolition of the lottery system in the District as an immorality, was a flagrant breach of this "good faith" to Maryland and Virginia, as the system "still continued in those states." So to abolish imprisonment for debt, and capital punishment, to remodel the bank system, the power of corporations, the militia law, laws of limitation, &c., in the District, unless Virginia and Maryland took the lead, would violate the "good faith implied in the cession," &c.
That in the acts of cession no such "good faith" was "implied by Virginia and Maryland" as is claimed in the Resolution, we argue from the fact, that in 1784 Virginia ceded to the United States all her northwest territory, with the special proviso that her citizens inhabiting that territory should "have their possessions and titles confirmed to them, and be protected in the enjoyment of their rights and liberties." (See Journals of Congress, vol. 9, p. 63.) The cession was made in the form of a deed, and signed by Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Hardy, Arthur Lee, and James Monroe. Many of these inhabitants held slaves. Three years after the cession, the Virginia delegation in Congress proposed the passage of an ordinance which should abolish slavery, in that territory, and declare that it should never thereafter exist there. All the members of Congress from Virginia and Maryland voted for this ordinance. Suppose some member of Congress had during the passage of the ordinance introduced the following resolution: "Resolved, That when the northwest territory was ceded by Virginia to the United States, domestic slavery existed in that State, including the ceded territory, and as it still continues in that State, it could not be abolished within the territory without a violation of that good faith, which was implied in the cession and in the acceptance of the territory." What would have been the indignant response of Grayson, Griffin, Madison, and the Lees, in the Congress of '87, to such a resolution, and of Carrington, Chairman of the Committee, who reported the ratification of the ordinance in the Congress of '89, and of Page and Parker, who with every other member of the Virginia delegation supported it!
But to enumerate all the absurdities into which the thirty-six Senators have plunged themselves, would be to make a quarto inventory. We decline the task; and in conclusion, merely add that Mr. Clay, in presenting this resolution, and each of the thirty-six Senators who voted for it, entered on the records of the Senate, and proclaimed to the world, a most unworthy accusation against the MILLIONS of American citizens who have during nearly half a century petitioned the national legislature to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia,—charging them either with the ignorance or the impiety of praying the nation to violate its "PLIGHTED FAITH." The resolution virtually indicts at the bar of public opinion, and brands with odium, all the Manumission Societies, the first petitioners for the abolition of slavery in the District, and for a long time the only ones, petitioning from year to year through evil report and good report, still petitioning, by individual societies and in their national conventions.
But as if it were not enough to table the charge against such men as Benjamin Rush, William Rawle, John Sergeant, Robert Vaux, Cadwallader Colden, and Peter A. Jay,—to whom we may add Rufus King, James Hillhouse, William Pinkney, Thomas Addis Emmett, Daniel D. Tompkins, De Witt Clinton, James Kent, and Daniel Webster, besides eleven hundred citizens of the District itself, headed by their Chief Justice and judges—even the sovereign States of Pennsylvania, New-York, Massachusetts, and Vermont, whose legislatures have either memorialized Congress to abolish slavery in the District, or instructed their Senators to move such a measure, must be gravely informed by Messrs. Clay, Norvell, Niles, Smith, Pierce, Benton, Black, Tipton, and other honorable Senators, either that their perception is so dull, they know not what of they affirm, or that their moral sense is so blunted they can demand without compunction a violation of the nation's faith!
We have spoken already of the concessions unwittingly made in this resolution to the true doctrine of Congressional power over the District. For that concession, important as it is, we have small thanks to render. That such a resolution, passed with such an intent, and pressing at a thousand points on relations and interests vital to the free states, should be hailed, as it has been, by a portion of the northern press as a "compromise" originating in deference to northern interests, and to be received by us as a free-will offering of disinterested benevolence, demanding our gratitude to the mover,—may well cover us with shame. We deserve the humiliation and have well earned the mockery. Let it come!
If, after having been set up at auction in the public sales-room of the nation, and for thirty years, and by each of a score of "compromises," treacherously knocked off to the lowest bidder, and that without money and without price, the North, plundered and betrayed, will not, in this her accepted time, consider the things that belong to her peace before they are hidden from her eyes, then let her eat of the fruit of her own way, and be filled with her own devices! Let the shorn and blinded giant grind in the prison-house of the Philistines, till taught the folly of intrusting to Delilahs the secret and the custody of his strength.
Have the free States bound themselves by an oath never to profit by the lessons of experience? If lost to reason, are they dead to instinct also? Can nothing rouse them to cast about for self preservation? And shall a life of tame surrenders be terminated by suicidal sacrifice?
A "COMPROMISE!" Bitter irony! Is the plucked and hood-winked North to be wheedled by the sorcery of another Missouri compromise? A compromise in which the South gained all, and the North lost all, and lost it for ever. A compromise which embargoed the free laborer of the North and West, and clutched at the staff he leaned upon, to turn it into a bludgeon and fell him with its stroke. A compromise which wrested from liberty her boundless birthright domain, stretching westward to the sunset, while it gave to slavery loose reins and a free course, from the Mississippi to the Pacific.
The resolution, as it finally passed, is here inserted. The original Resolution, as moved by Mr. Clay, was inserted at the head of this postscript with the impression that it was the amended form. It will be seen however, that it underwent no material modification.
"Resolved, That the interference by the citizens of any of the states, with the view to the abolition of slavery in the District, is endangering the rights and security of the people of the District; and that any act or measure of Congress designed to abolish slavery in the District, would be a violation of the faith implied in the cessions by the states of Virginia and Maryland, a just cause of alarm to the people of the slaveholding states, and have a direct and inevitable tendency to disturb and endanger the Union."
The vote upon the Resolution stood as follows:
Yeas.—Messrs. Allen, Bayard, Benton, Black, Buchanan, Brown, Calhoun, Clay, of Alabama, Clay, of Kentucky, Clayton, Crittenden, Cuthbert, Fulton, Grundy, Hubbard, King, Lumpkin, Lyon, Nicholas, Niles, Norvell, Pierce, Preston, Rives, Roane, Robinson, Sevier, Smith, of Connecticut, Strange, Tallmadge, Tipton, Walker, White, Williams, Wright, Young.
Nays.—Messrs. DAVIS, KNIGHT, McKEAN, MORRIS, PRENTISS, RUGGLES, SMITH, of Indiana, SWIFT, WEBSTER.
1836 By The American Anti-Slavery Society.
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ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE NEW-YORK EVENING POST, UNDER THE SIGNATURE OF "WYTHE."
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WITH ADDITIONS BY THE AUTHOR.
FOURTH EDITION.
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NEW YORK: PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY, No. 143 NASSAU STREET. 1838.
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This No. contains 3-1/2 sheets.--Postage, under 100 miles, 6 cts. over 100, 10 cts.
POWER OF CONGRESS OVER THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.
A civilized community presupposes a government of law. If that government be a republic, its citizens are the sole sources, as well as the subjects of its power. Its constitution is their bill of directions to their own agents--a grant authorizing the exercise of certain powers, and prohibiting that of others. In the Constitution of the United States, whatever else may be obscure, the clause granting power to Congress over the Federal District may well defy misconstruction. Art. 1, Sec. 8, Clause 18: "The Congress shall have power to exercise exclusive legislation, in all cases whatsoever, over such District." Congress may make laws for the District "in all cases," not of all kinds. The grant respects the subjects of legislation, not the moral nature of the laws. The law-making power every where, is subject to moral restrictions, whether limited by constitutions or not. No legislature can authorize murder, nor make honesty penal, nor virtue a crime, nor exact impossibilities. In these and similar respects, the power of Congress is held in check by principles existing in the nature of things, not imposed by the Constitution, but presupposed and assumed by it. The power of Congress over the District is restricted only by those principles that limit ordinary legislation, and, in some respects, it has even wider scope.
In common with the legislatures of the States, Congress cannot constitutionally pass ex post facto laws in criminal cases, nor suspend the writ of habeas corpus, nor pass a bill of attainder, nor abridge the freedom of speech and of the press, nor invade the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, nor enact laws respecting an establishment of religion. These are general limitations. Congress cannot do these things any where. The exact import, therefore, of the clause "in all cases whatsoever," is, on all subjects within the appropriate sphere of legislation. Some legislatures are restrained by constitutions from the exercise of powers strictly within the proper sphere of legislation. Congressional power over the District has no such restraint. It traverses the whole field of legitimate legislation. All the power which any legislature has within its own jurisdiction, Congress holds over the District of Columbia.
It has been asserted that the clause in question respects merely police regulations, and that its sole design was to enable Congress to protect itself against popular tumults. But if the framers of the Constitution aimed to provide for a single case only, why did they provide for "all cases whatsoever?" Besides, this clause was opposed in many of the state conventions, because the grant of power was not restricted to police regulations alone. In the Virginia Convention, George Mason, the father of the Virginia Constitution, said, "This clause gives an unlimited authority in every possible case within the District. He would willingly give them exclusive power as far as respected the police and good government of the place, but he would give them no more." Mr. Grayson said, that control over the police was all-sufficient, and that the "Continental Congress never had an idea of exclusive legislation in all cases." Patrick Henry said. "Is it consistent with any principle of prudence or good policy, to grant unlimited, unbounded authority?" Mr. Madison said in reply: "I did conceive that the clause under consideration was one of those parts which would speak its own praise. When any power is given, its delegation necessarily involves authority to make laws to execute it. * * * * The powers which are found necessary to be given, are therefore delegated generally, and particular and minute specification is left to the legislature. * * * It is not within the limits of human capacity to delineate on paper all those particular cases and circumstances, in which legislation by the general legislature would be necessary." Governor Randolph said: "Holland has no ten miles square, but she has the Hague where the deputies of the States assemble. But the influence which it has given the province of Holland, to have the seat of government within its territory, subject in some respects to its control, has been injurious to the other provinces. The wisdom of the Convention is therefore manifest in granting to Congress exclusive jurisdiction over the place of their session." [Deb. Va. Con., p. 320.] In the forty-third number of the "Federalist," Mr. Madison says: "The indispensable necessity of complete authority at the seat of government, carries its own evidence with it."
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' Constitution 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 CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS--or, IS THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY WITHIN THE APPROPRIATE SPHERE OF LEGISLATION?
1. 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 Constitution--the people thus committing to the legislature a portion of their sovereignty, and specifying in their constitutions the amount of the grant and its conditions. 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 Constitution, 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 of the constitution graduates the power of Congress by the standard of those legislatures? Was the United States' constitution 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 constitutional power over the District, as though Congress were indebted for it to Maryland and Virginia. The powers of those states, whether 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 constitutional tether, with which to curb congressional action. THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES gives power to Congress, and takes it away, and it alone. Maryland and Virginia adopted the Constitution 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' constitution, 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.