self-goverment for the territorial people in defiance of the authority of the American Constitution, while he says they are "subject" to it, and must be "loyal." The colonies, in very truth, could only have become free by refusing to be subject to the constitution of Old England-not the constitution of her dependencies, but of herself alone; so vagrant is her constitution in acts of Parliament omnipotent. The territories can only become free indeed, and so remain, by consenting to be subject to the Constitution (not of NewEngland and her allies only, but) of the United States-a Constitution written down and the unchanging record of the public law of these States. It is withal, and this is the most of it, that it is to that written Constitution, AS A WHOLE, and not only as fragmentary, that the people of the territories are "subject" and must be "loyal." It is only because this living and leading truth is not observed and enforced, that the hideous excrescence of Mormonism, in Utah, is suffered so to disfigure our beautiful system. It is a truth living in abstraction, but not binding in practice. It is only because the abstraction is not valued in practice, that the slavery agitation as to the dimensions of its constitutional sanctuary, is yet a little longer to be lengthened out, or else the slave States are to become (or remain) as degraded as if they were made inferior to the free States, by that Constitution to which they must all alike be subject, if they would retain in union that freedom which is the only freedom the Constitution of the United States was intended to secure.

One remark will suffice as to the next most prominent incident in our history, from which the author of the essay strives to gather strength to his theory of" popular sovereignty" in the territories. The remark is, that no support can be derived from "the Jeffersonian plan," for the reason that it belonged to the epoch of the old "Confederation," which was superseded by the "more perfect Union" now existing, and "acting directly upon the individual citizens." The failure of the "Confederation" so to act, was its great deficiency which produced the necessity for the substitution of the Federal Union. There was not then, as now there is, a "superintending government" (see the Federalist, on the "guarantee of republican forms"), to which the territorial people, no less than the people of the several States, are subject and must be loyal. There was not then, as now there is, a general government, which, exacting obedience of individuals to its decrees, to the utmost extent of its intrusted powers, owes to those individu

als the correlative duty (to the extent of its utmost granted powers) of "protecting and guarding" them in their rights of property. Such is the duty of that general government, say the judges of the Supreme Court of the United States, "coupled with the power" to do it: and the author of the essay denies that he has assailed or dissents from that court.

It would next be here shown at more length, than is intended, if it were not elsewhere already shown so well by others, that the author of the essay has failed to derive, as no one could where his ability and ingenuity fail to derive, any support to his theory, from the opinions of the judges, which he brings forth from the Dredd Scott adjudication. While, it is not claimed to be an argument to convince, it is entitled to some influence to dissuade from the acceptance of the interpretation the author of the essay ascribes to those opinions, to remind our readers that other eminent men cite the very passage in the opinion of the court, in support of "intervention for protection," which that author presses into his service as if against that doctrine, in his citations of that opinion, to wit: that the only power Congress has in the business is, "the power coupled with the duty of guarding and protecting the owner [of slaves] in his rights." It shall suffice, on this head, directly to refer to the ingenious use the author makes of that citation of the passage which he sets forth in full, with fairness. His use of it is an attempt to show, or lead his readers to infer, that the court only intended that the power and duty to guard and protect slave property to its owners, extended only to cases of "slaves escaped from their owners." Marking the words, "if the slave escapes from his owner," in italics, in the passage as he quotes it in full, he annexes the remark that such is "the only contingency" in which the court intended that it is the right of Congress "to interfere with slavery in the States or territories." Now, let it be noted, for no use here, however, that the court does not, in the cited passage or elsewhere, in the opinion, even intimate, most remotely, that Congress has any power, at any time, or in any way, to "interfere" with slavery, in the States. It is only as to the territories that there is any one conflicting view with another. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." The territories alone are looked to. As to these, in another sentence of the passage which the author quotes, the court says that "no tribunal, acting under the authority of the United States, whether it be legislative, executive, or judicial, has a right to deny to it [slave property] the benefit of the provisions and guarantees" (not the fugitive.

slave clause alone) "which have been provided for the protection of private property against the encroachments of the government." Is it not too plain for comment, that the authority of the opinion of the court is not confined to "the only contin gency" "of a slave escaped from his owner"? Without the many obvious remarks on the use the author makes of the word "interfere," it may be indulged as important (as it is deemed pertinent) to remark on it that the clause of reserved rights, in the Constitution of the United States, which "no frenzied fanaticism can efface," coupled with the other clauses which, though bearing on the subject of the discussion, the author of the essay omits to quote, does "prohibit to the States"-not only to the State legislatures, as he says it does not to the territorial legislatures, but also to conventions forming State constitutions-any right whatever to touch the ownership of private property, except for debt, or crime, or public use. It is in the strength of the omitted clauses-the clauses not cited by the author of the essay-that the power to deprive the owner of the possession of his slaves in kind, is prohibited to the States and to a territorial people forming a constitution for admission-not "accession"- -as a State. These omitted clauses are, most prominently, that, "no person shall be deprived of his property, except by due process of law," for debt or crime; and that "private property shall not be taken for public use, without just compensation." It is only for public use, with just compensation to the owner, that his property can be taken, lawfully, from him. Only by the supreme legislative power of a sovereign State, of power uncontradicted and despotic, could it be taken without just compensation. Now, let it be admitted that "it is universally agreed that those clauses apply only to the exercise of the power by the government of the United States;" yet it is true, as recently we have been told by high authority, in certain "observations" on the author's essay, that "we are also protected against the State governments, by a similar provision in the State constitutions." Why should we not be also protected by similar provisions against the territorial governments, and against the majority of the territorial delegates in convention, when in the act of forming their constitution to become a State? The same great cause the identical and sempiternal reason-which induced the framers of the Federal Constitution, and of the constitutions of the States severally, to incorporate into them those expressions of the principle of protection of private property, still

exists in all its might and majesty to dictate the incorporation of the principles into the constitution of every people asking to come as a State into the Union. That cause-that REASON, as the same high authority expresses it-is that "this power over property is the one which, in all governments, has been most carefully guarded, because, "the temptation [to government] to abuse it is always greater than any other." The conclusion is, that territorial interference with private property, not within the clear scope of the principle of those provisions in the federal and the State constitutions, can only be "in flat rebellion to the fundamental law of the land." It is only insisted beyond, that the provisions by which "we are also protected against the governments of the States," that are already in the Union, shall be incorporated into the constitution of every State yet to be admitted.

The other chief error on which the author of the essay ingeniously seeks to fortify his theory, is the notion that these States must all become slave or be made free States. The notion is quoted by the author, with toleration, if not with concurrence. He puts the question thus: if the principles of law, applicable to negro slavery, are uniform throughout the dominion of the United States, why does not slavery exist, today, in Pennsylvania as well as Virginia? The idea of the author is that, if, by virtue of the Constitution of the United States, slavery lawfully exists in Kansas, in case the owner of any slaves has carried them there, it is equally true that, by virtue of that Constitution, it would lawfully be established in Massachusetts, should the owner of a negro think fit, in the wantonness of his masterdom, to carry him into that now free State, to be there held in bondage as a property. That is the marrow of the frame-work of the long-protracted dissection of the subject of negro slavery in the territories. It has been much mangled. It seems to me the views may be shown to be altogether erroneous. Let two observations be first presented. The distinguished citizen who first suggested the theory that all the States must either be slave or free, cited (as he supposed) two facts to sustain it. The one is, that, as to negro slavery, "the United States constitute one nation." It is, perhaps, enough, on this point to say, that the very generally received opinion, if, indeed, it is not now universally agreed, is, that we are one nation only in our foreign relations. The other supposed fact is, that, in the slave States, the masterdom over negroes "constitutes a ruling aristocracy." The truth of history, as well as the exist

ing state of things, is, that the right of suffrage, in which resides the political power in this country, is as liberally extended in the slave as in the free States. In no sense, now, is it the case that the owners of slaves are the favored depository and dispenser of the political power of the slave States. The number of votes in Virgiuia is probably larger of those who do not, than of those who do own negroes. The theory fails of both the facts claimed for its support.

The other matter to be observed on is, that the fugitive slave clause is not the only nor the principal recognition of slavery by the Constitution of the United States. The clause. apportioning representation is another and more important subjection of negro slaves to the status of property. Here is a positive act, by the founders of our federation system, treating. negroes as less than persons. That act was not constrained by deference to any State law. So the author of the essay cannot gather, as he seems to seek, strength to his views from the fact, as he supposes it was, that, because the laws of certain States "created" (?) a property in slaves of African descent, therefore they were recognized as such by the Constitution of the United States. The truth of history is, that negroes were not made a property by "State laws." It was an existing property before there was any state of "confederated" association. Considering the prevalent aversion to negro slavery during the old " Confederation," and the disposition to form a more perfect union-a union of larger powers than the old league-it is not improbable that the framers and ratifiers of the Federal Constitution would have refused to recognize the "all other persons" as property, in mere deference to State laws. Be that so or not, it is certain that the federal authority is bound by the Constitution of the United States, in which that authority consists, to treat negroes as less than persons, by another provision of that instrument, besides the one requiring the fugitive or stolen slave to be restored to the master, from any other State to the one "under the laws whereof" his labor is due to his owner. A higher consideration than the policy of any of the States, constrained the framers of the Federal Constitution to recognize negroes as property, and to treat them as such. It was respect for the ownership of property which had descended from father to son, and from testator to legatees, and from seller to buyer, from 1620, when the title was acquired by occupancy or by purchase (in the heathen land) of the original stock, that negroes were recognized by the Federal Constitution as a