The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus

by American Anti-Slavery Society

December 16, 1828. "Mr. Barnard presented the memorial of the American Convention for promoting the abolition of slavery, held in Baltimore, praying that slavery may be abolished in the District of Columbia." Journal U.S. Senate, 1828-29, p.24.

6. DISTINGUISHED STATESMEN AND JURISTS IN THE SLAVEHOLDING STATES, HAVE CONCEDED THIS POWER. The testimony Of Messrs. Doddridge, and Powell, of Virginia, Chief Justice Cranch, and Judges Morsel and Van Ness, of the District, has already been given. In the debate in Congress on the memorial of the Society of Friends, in 1790, Mr. Madison, in speaking of the territories of the United States, explicitly declared, from his own knowledge of the views of the members of the convention that framed the constitution, as well as from the obvious import of its terms, that in the territories, "Congress have certainly the power to regulate the subject of slavery." Congress can have no more power over the territories than that of "exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever," consequently, according to Mr. Madison, "it has certainly the power to regulate the subject of slavery in the" District. In March, 1816, Mr. Randolph of Virginia, introduced a resolution for putting a stop to the domestic slave trade within the District. December 12, 1827, Mr. Barney, of Maryland, presented a memorial for abolition in the District, and moved that it be printed. Mr. McDuffie, of S.C., objected to the printing, but "expressly admitted the right of Congress to grant to the people of the District any measure which they might deem necessary to free themselves from the deplorable evil."--[See letter of Mr. Claiborne of Miss. to his constituents published in the Washington Globe, May 9, 1836.] The sentiments of Mr. Clay of Kentucky, on the subject are well known. In a speech before the U.S. Senate, in 1836, he declared the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District "unquestionable." Messrs. Blair, of Tennessee, and Chilton, Lyon, and R.M. Johnson, of Kentucky, A.H. Shepperd, of N.C., Messrs. Armstrong and Smyth of Va., Messrs. Dorsey, Archer, and Barney, of Md., and Johns, of Del., with numerous others from slave states have asserted the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District. In the speech of Mr. Smyth, of Virginia, on the Missouri question, January 28, 1820, he says on this point: "If the future freedom of the blacks is your real object, and not a mere pretence, why do you begin here? Within the ten miles square, you have undoubted power to exercise exclusive legislation. Produce a bill to emancipate the slaves in the District of Columbia, or, if you prefer it, to emancipate those born hereafter."

To this may be added the testimony of the present Vice President of the United States, Hon. Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky. In a speech before the U.S. Senate, February 1, 1820, (National Intelligencer, April 29, 1829,) he says: "In the District of Columbia, containing a population of 30,000 souls, and probably as many slaves as the whole territory of Missouri, THE POWER OF PROVIDING FOR THEIR EMANCIPATION RESTS WITH CONGRESS ALONE. Why then, this heart-rending sympathy for the slaves of Missouri, and this cold insensibility, this eternal apathy, towards the slaves in the District of Columbia?"

It is quite unnecessary to add, that the most distinguished northern statesmen of both political parties, have always affirmed the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District. President Van Buren in his letter of March 6, 1836, to a committee of Gentlemen in North Carolina, says, "I would not, from the light now before me, feel myself safe in pronouncing that Congress does not possess the power of abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia." This declaration of the President is consistent with his avowed sentiments touching the Missouri question, on which he coincided with such men as Daniel D. Thompkins, De Witt Clinton, and others, whose names are a host.[[A]] It is consistent, also with his recommendation in his last message, in which speaking of the District, he strongly urges upon Congress "a thorough and careful revision of its local government," speaks of the "entire independence" of the people of the District "upon Congress," recommends that a "uniform system of local government" be adopted, and adds, that "although it was selected as the seat of the General Government, the site of its public edifices, the depository of its archives, and the residences of officers intrusted with large amounts of public property, and the management of public business, yet it never has been subjected to, or received, that special and comprehensive legislation which these circumstances peculiarly demanded."

[Footnote [A]: Mr. Van Buren, when a member of the Senate of New-York, voted for the following preamble and resolutions, which passed unanimously:--Jan. 28th, 1820. "Whereas the inhibiting the further extension of slavery in the United States, is a subject of deep concern to the people of this state: and whereas, we consider slavery as an evil much to be deplored, and that every constitutional barrier should be interposed to prevent its further extension: and that the constitution of the United States clearly gives Congress the right to require new states, not comprised within the original boundary of the United States, to make the prohibition of slavery a condition of their admission into the Union: Therefore,

Resolved, That our Senators be instructed, and our members of Congress be requested, to oppose the admission as a state into the Union, of any territory not comprised as aforesaid, without making the prohibition of slavery therein an indispensible condition of admission."

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The tenor of Mr. Tallmadge's speech on the right of petition, and of Mr. Webster's on the reception of abolition memorials, may be taken as universal exponents of the sentiments of northern statesmen as to the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia.

An explicit declaration, that an "overwhelming majority" of the present Congress concede the power to abolish slavery in the District has just been made by Robert Barnwell Rhett, a member of Congress from South Carolina, in a letter published in the Charleston Mercury of Dec. 27, 1837. The following is an extract:

"The time has arrived when we must have new guaranties under the constitution, or the Union must be dissolved. Our views of the constitution are not those of the majority. AN OVERWHELMING MAJORITY think that by the constitution, Congress may abolish slavery in the District of Columbia--may abolish the slave trade between the States; that is, it may prohibit their being carried out of the State in which they are--and prohibit it in all the territories, Florida among them. They think, NOT WITHOUT STRONG REASONS, that the power of Congress extends to all of these subjects."