two States, in the same manner as the difference in the rights of the citizens of these States to vote for representatives in Congress arises out of the State laws and constitution. In Massachusetts, every person of lawful age, and possessing property of any sort, of the value of two hundred dollars, may vote for representatives to Congress. In Virginia, no person can vote for representatives to Congress, unless he be a freeholder. As the admission of a new State into the Union confers upon its citizens only the rights denominated federal, and as these are common to the citizens of all the States, as well of those in which slavery is prohibited, as of those in which it is allowed, it follows that the prohibition of slavery in Missouri will not impair the federal rights of its citizens, and that such prohibition is not sustained by the clause of the treaty which has been cited.

or possessed by the new inhabitants of Missouri, has in each case been acquired under the laws of the United States, and not during and under the laws of the province of Louisiana. Should, therefore, the future introduction of slaves into Missouri, be forbidden, the feelings of the citizens would soon become reconciled to their exclusion, and the inconsiderable number of slaves owned by the inhabitants at the date of the cession of Louisiana, would be emancipated or sent for sale into States where slavery exists.

It is further objected, that the article of the act of admission into the Union, by which slavery should be excluded from Missouri, would be nugatory, as the new State in virtue of its sovereignty would be at liberty to revoke its consent, and annul the article by which slavery is excluded.

Such revocation would be contrary to the obligations of good faith, which enjoins the observance of our engagements; it would be repugnant to the principles on which government itself is founded: sovereignty in every lawful government is a limited power, and can do only what it is lawful to do sovereigns, like individuals, are bound by their engage

The remaining clause of the article is expressly confined to the period of the territorial government of Missouri, to the time between the first occupation of the country by the United States, and its admission as a new State into the Union. Whatever may be its import, it has no reference nor application to the terms of the admission, or to the condition of Mis-ments, and have no moral power to break them. souri, after it shall have been admitted into the Union. The clause is but the common formula of treaties, by which inhabited territories are passed from one sovereign to another; its object is to secure such inhabitants the permanent or temporary enjoyment of their former liberties, property, and religion; leaving to the new sovereign full power to make such regulations respecting the same, as may be thought expedient, provided these regulations be not incompatible with the stipulated security.

Treaties between nations repose on this principle. If the new State can revoke and annul an article concluded between itself and the United States, by which slavery is excluded from it, it may revoke and annul any other article of the compact; it may, for example, annul the article respecting public lands, and in virtue of its sovereignty, assume the right to tax and to sell the lands of the United States. There is yet a more satisfactory answer to this objection. The judicial power of the United States is co-extensive with their legislative power, and every question arising under the Constitution or laws of the United States, is cognizable by the judiciary thereof. Should the new State rescind any of the articles of compact contained in the act of admission into the Union, that, for example, by which slavery is excluded, and should pass a law authorizing

What were the liberties under the French government, the enjoyment of which, under ours, called for protection, we are unable to explain; as the United States have no power to prevent the free enjoyment of the Catholic religion, no stipulation against their interference to disturb it could be necessary; and the only part of the clause whose object can be readily understood, is that relative to "pro-slavery, the judiciary of the United States, on perty."

proper application, would immediately deliver from bondage, any person detained as a slave in said State. And, in like manner, in all instances affecting individuals, the judiciary might be employed to defeat every attempt to violate the Constitution and laws of the United States.

As all nations do not permit slavery, the term property, in its common and universal meaning, does not include or describe slaves. In treaties, therefore, between nations, and especially in those of the United States, whenever stipulations respecting slaves were to be If Congress possess the power to exclude made, the word "negroes," or "slaves," have slavery from Missouri, it still remains to be been employed, and the omission of these words shown that they ought to do so. The examiin this clause, increases the uncertainty whe-nation of this branch of the subject, for obvious ther, by the term property, slaves were intended to be included. But admitting that such was the intention of the parties, the stipulation is not only temporary, but extends no further than to the property actually possessed by the inhabitants of Missouri, when it was first occupied by the United States. Property since acquired by them, and property acquired

reasons, is attended with peculiar difficulty, and cannot be made without passing over arguments which, to some of us, might appear to be decisive, but the use of which, in this place, would call up feelings, the influence of which would disturb, if not defeat, the impartial consideration of the subject.

Slavery, unhappily, exists within the United

the want of a rule of apportionment, until the establishment of the constitution.

States. Enlightened men, in the States where it is permitted, and every where out of them, regret its existence among us, and seek for the When the general convention that formed means of limiting and of mitigating it. The first the constitution took this subject into their conintroduction of slaves is not imputable to the sideration, the whole question was once more present generation, nor even to their ancestors. examined; and while it was agreed that all conBefore the year 1642, the trade and ports of tributions to the common treasury should be the colonies were open to foreigners equally as made according to the ability of the several those of the mother country; and as early as States to furnish the same, the old difficulty 1620, a few years only after the planting of the recurred in agreeing upon a rule whereby such colony of Virginia, and the same year in which ability should be ascertained, there being no the first settlement was made in the old colony simple standard by which the ability of indiof Plymouth, a cargo of negroes was brought viduals to pay taxes can be ascertained. A diinto, and sold as slaves in Virginia, by a foreign versity in the selection of taxes has been deemed ship.* From this beginning, the importation requisite to their equalization. Between comof slaves was continued for nearly two centu-munities this difficulty is less considerable, and ries. To her honor, Virginia, while a colony, although the rule of relative numbers would opposed the importation of slaves, and was the not accurately measure the relative wealth of first State to prohibit the same, by a law passed nations, in States in the circumstances of the for this purpose in 1778, thirty years before United States, whose institutions, laws and emthe general prohibition enacted by Congress in ployments are so much alike, the rule of num1808. The laws and custom of the States in bers is probably as near equal as any other which slavery has existed for so long a. period, simple and practicable rule can be expected to must have had their influence on the opinions be, (though between the old and new States its and habits of the citizens, which ought not to equity is defective,) these considerations, added be disregarded on the present occasion. to the approbation which had already been given to the rule, by a majority of the States, induced the convention to agree that direct taxes should be apportioned among the States, according to the whole number of free persons, and three-fifths of the slaves which they might respectively contain.

Omitting, therefore, the arguments which might be urged, and which by all of us might be deemed conclusive were this an original question, the reasons which shall be offered in favor of the interposition of the power of Congress to exclude slavery from Missouri shall be only such as respect the common defence, the general welfare, and that wise administration of the government, which, as far as possible, may produce the impartial distribution of efits and burdens throughout the Union.

The rule for apportionment of taxes is not necessarily the most equitable rule for the apportionment of representatives among the ben-States; property must not be disregarded in the composition of the first rule, but frequently is overlooked in the establishment of the second. A rule which might be approved in respect to taxes, would be disapproved in respect to representatives; one individual possessing twice as much property as another, might be required to pay double the taxes of such other; but no man has two votes to another's one; rich or poor, each has but a single vote in the choice of representatives.

By the articles of confederation the common treasury was to be supplied by the several States, according to the value of the lands, with the houses and improvements thereon, within the respective States. From the difficulty in making this valuation, the old Congress were unable to apportion the requisition for the supply of the general treasury, and obliged to propose to the States to propose an alteration of the articles of confederation, by which the whole number of free persons, with three-fifths of the slaves contained in the respective States, should become the rule of such apportionment of the taxes. A majority of the States approved of this alteration, but some of them disagreed to the same; and for want of a practicable rule of apportionment, the whole of the requisition of taxes made by Congress, during the revolutionary war and afterwards, up to the establishment of the Constitution of the United States, were merely provisional, and subject to revision and correction, as soon as such rules should be adopted. The several States were credited for their supplies, and charged for the advances made to them by Congress; but no settlement of their accounts could be made for

*Stith's History of Virginia.

In the dispute between England and the colonies, the latter denied the right of the former to tax them, because they were not represented in the English Parliament. They contended that, according to the law of the land, taxation and representation were inseparable. The rule of taxation being agreed upon by the convention, it is possible that the maxim with which we successfully opposed the claim of England, may have had an influence in procuring the adoption of the same rule for the apportionment of representatives; the true meaning, however, of this principle of the English constitution is, that a colony or district is not to be taxed which is not represented; not that its number of representatives shall be ascertained by its quota of taxes. If threefifths of the slaves are virtually represented, or their owners obtain a disproportionate power in legislation, and in the appointment of

49

inal thirteen States. The considerations arising
out of their actual condition, their past con-
nection, and the obligation which all felt to
promote a reformation in the Federal Govern-
ment, were peculiar to the time and to the par-
ties, and are not applicable to the new States,
which Congress may now be willing to admit
into the Union.

The equality of rights, which includes an
equality of burdens, is a vital principle in our
theory of government, and its jealous preserva-
tion is the best security of public and individual
freedom; the departure from this principle in
the disproportionate power and influence, al-
lowed to the slaveholding States, was a neces-
The effect of this concession has
sary sacrifice to the establishment of the con-
stitution.
been obvious in the preponderance which it
has given to the slaveholding States, over the
other States. Nevertheless, it is an ancient
settlement, and faith and honor stand pledged
not to disturb it. But the extension of this
disproportionate power to the new States would
be unjust and odious. The States whose power
would be abridged, and whose burdens would
be increased by the measure, cannot be expect-
ed to consent to it; and we may hope that
the other States are too magnanimous to insist
on it.

the President of the United States, why should | hended. It was a settlement between the orignot other property be virtually represented, and its owners obtain a like power in legislation, and in the choice of the President? Property is not confined in slaves, but exists in houses, stores, ships, capital in trade and manufactures. To secure to the owners of property in slaves greater political power than is allowed to the owners of other and equivalent property, seems to be contrary to our theory of the equality of personal rights, inasmuch as the citizens of some States thereby become entitled to other and greater political power, than the citizens of other States. The present House of Representatives consist of one hundred and eightyone members, which are apportioned among the States in a ratio of one representative for every thirty-five thousand federal members, which are ascertained by adding to the whole number of free persons, three-fifths of the slaves. According to the last census, the whole number of slaves within the United States was 1,191,364, which entitles the States possessing the same to twenty representatives, and twenty presidential electors more thar they would be entitled to, were the slaves excluded. By the last census, Virginia contained 582,104 free persons, and 392,518 slaves. In any of the States where slavery is excluded, 582,104 free persons would be entitled to elect only sixteen representatives, while in Virginia, 582,104 free persons, by the addition of three-fifths of her slaves, become entitled to elect, and do in fact elect twenty-three representatives, being seven additional ones on account of her slaves. Thus, while 35,000 free persons are requisite to elect one representative in a State where slavery is prohibited; 25,559 free persons in Virginia, may and do elect a representative-so that five free persons in Virginia have as much power in the choice of Representatives to Congress, and in the appointment of presidential electors, as seven free persons in any of the States in which slavery does not exist.

This inequality in the apportionment of repnot misunderstood at the resentatives, was adoption of the constitution-but as no one anticipated the fact that the whole of the revenue of the United States would be derived from indirect taxes (which cannot be supposed to spread themselves over the several States according to the rule for the apportionment of direct taxes), but it was believed that a part of the contribution to the common treasury would be apportioned among the States by the rule for the apportionment of representatives. The States in which slavery is prohibited, ultimately, though with reluctance, acquiesced in the disproportionate number of representatives and electors that was secured to the slaveholding States. The concession was, at the time, believed to be a great one, and has proved to have been the greatest which was made to secure the adoption of the constitution.

Great, however, as this concession was, it was definite, and its full extent was compreVOL. II.-4

The existence of slavery impairs the industry and the power of a nation; and it does so in proportion to the multiplication of its slaves: where the manual labor of a country is performed by slaves, labor dishonors the hands of freemen.

If her laborers are slaves, Missouri may be able to pay money taxes, but will be unable to raise soldiers or to recruit seamen, and experience seems to have proved that manufactures do not prosper where the artificers are slaves. In case of foreign war, or domestic insurrection, misfortunes from which no State is exempt, and against which all should be seasonably prepared, slaves not only do not add to, but diminish the faculty of self-defence; instead of increasing the public strength, they lessen it, by the whole number of free persons whose place they occupy, increased by the number of freemen that may be employed as guards over them.

The motives for the admission of new States into the Union, are the extension of the principles of our free government, the equalizing of Unless the public burdens, and the consolidation of the power of the confederated nation. these objects be promoted by the admission of new States, no such admission can be expedient or justified.

The States in which slavery already exists are contiguous to each other; they are also the portion of the United States nearest to the Earopean colonies in the West Indies; colonies whose future condition can hardly be regarded as problematical. If Missouri, and the other States that may be formed to the west of the river Mississippi, are permitted to introduce

impair.

and establish slavery, the repose, if not the se- | citizens, whose rights it will not, and cannot curity, of the Union may be endangered; all the States south of the river Ohio, and west of Pennsylvania and Delaware, will be peopled with slaves, and the establishment of new States west of the river Mississippi, will serve to extend slavery instead of freedom over that boundless region.

Such increase of the States, whatever other interests it may promote, will be sure to add nothing to the security of the public liberties, and can hardly fail, hereafter, to require and produce a change in our government.

Besides there is nothing new or peculiar in a provision for the exclusion of slavery; it has been established in the States northwest of the river Ohio, and has existed from the beginning in the old States where slavery is forbidden. The citizens of States where slavery is allowed, may become inhabitants of Missouri, but cannot hold slaves there, nor in any other State where slavery is prohibited. As well might the laws prohibiting slavery in the old States become the subject of complaint, as the proposed exclusion of slavery in Missouri; but there is no foundation for such complaint in either case. It is further urged, that the admission of slaves into Missouri would be limited to the slaves who are already within the Unit

On the other hand, if slavery be excluded from Missouri, and the other new States which may be formed in this quarter, not only will the slave markets be broken up, and the principles of freedom be extended and strengthened, but an exposed and important frontier will pre-ed States; that their health and comfort would sent a barrier which will check and keep back foreign assailants, who may be as brave, and, as we hope, will be as free as ourselves. Surrounded in this manner by connected bodies of freemen, the States where slavery is allowed will be made more secure against domestic insurrection, and less liable to be affected by what may take place in the neighboring colonies.

be promoted by their dispersion, and that their numbers would be the same whether they remain confined to the States where slavery exists, or are dispersed over the new States that may be admitted into the Union.

That none but domestic slaves would be introduced into Missouri, and the other new and frontier States, is most fully disproved by the thousands of fresh slaves, which, in violation of our laws, are annually imported into Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

It ought not to be forgotten, that the first and main object of the negotiation which led to the acquisition of Louisiana, was the free navigation of the Mississippi; a river that forms the sole passage from the western States to the ocean. This navigation, although of general benefit, has been always valued and desired, as of peculiar advantage to the western States, whose demands to obtain it, were neither equivocal nor unreasonable. But with the river Mississippi, by a sort of coercion, we acquired, by good or ill fortune, as our future measures shall determine, the whole province of Louisiana. As this acquisition was made at the common expense, it is very fairly urged that the advantages to be derived from it should also be common. This, it is said, will not happen if slavery be excluded from Missouri, as the citizens of the States where slavery is permitted will be shut out, and none but citizens of States where slavery is prohibited, can become inhab-excluding slavery from Missouri, is equally apitants of Missouri.

But this consequence will not arise from the proposed exclusion of slavery. The citizens of States in which slavery is allowed, like all other citizens, will be free to become inhabitants of Missouri, in like manner as they have become inhabitants of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, in which slavery is forbidden. The exclusion of slaves from Missouri will not, therefore, operate unequally among the citizens of the United States. The constitution provides, "that the citizens of each State shall be entitled to enjoy all the rights and immunities of citizens of the several States;" every citizen may, therefore, remove from one to another State, and there enjoy the rights and immunities of its citizens. The proposed provision excludes slaves, not

We may renew our efforts, and enact new laws with heavier penalties against the importation of slaves: the revenue cutters may more diligently watch our shores, and the naval force may be employed on the coast of Africa, and on the ocean, to break up the slave trade-but these means will not put an end to it; so long as markets are open for the purchase of slaves, so long they will be supplied;-and so long as we permit the existence of slavery in our new and frontier States, so long slave markets will exist. The plea of humanity is equally inadmissible, since no one who has ever witnessed the experiment, will believe that the condition of slaves is made better by the breaking up, and separation of their families, nor by their removal from the old States to the new ones; and the objection to the provision of the bill,

plicable to the like prohibitions of the old States: these should be revoked, in order that the slaves now confined to certain States, may, for their health and comfort, and multiplication, be spread over the whole Union.

That the condition of slaves within the United States has been improved, and the rigors of slavery mitigated, by the establishment and progress of our free governments, is a fact that imparts consolation to all who have taken pains to inquire concerning it. The disproportionate increase of free persons of color, can be explained only by the supposition that the practice of emancipation is gaining ground; a practice which there is reason to believe would become more general, if a plan could be devised by which the comfort and