The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus

by American Anti-Slavery Society

It should be regarded as no inconsiderable evidence of the anti-slavery genius and policy of the Constitution, that Congress promptly interdicted slavery in the first portion of territory, and that, too, a territory of vast extent, over which it acquired jurisdiction. And is it not a perfectly reasonable supposition, that the seat of our Government would not have been polluted by the presence of slavery, had Congress acted on that subject by itself, instead of losing sight of it in the wholesale legislation, by which the laws of Virginia and Maryland were revived in the District?

If the Federal Constitution be not anti-slavery in its general scope and character; if it be not impregnated with the principles of universal liberty; why was it necessary, in order to restrain Congress, for a limited period, from acting against the slave trade, which is but a branch or incident of slavery, to have a clause to that end in the Constitution? The fact that the framers of the Constitution refused to blot its pages with the word "slave" or "slavery;" and that, by periphrase and the substitution of "persons" for "slaves," they sought to conceal from posterity and the world the mortifying fact, that slavery existed under a government based on the principle, that governments derive "their just powers from the consent of the governed," contains volumes of proof, that they looked upon American slavery as a decaying institution; and that they would naturally shape the Constitution to the abridgment and the extinction, rather than the extension and perpetuity of the giant vice of the country.

It is not to be denied, that the Constitution tolerates a limited measure of slavery: but it tolerates this measure only as the exception to its rule of impartial and universal liberty. Were it otherwise, the principles of that instrument could be pleaded to justify the holding of men as property, in cases, other than those specifically provided for in it. Were it otherwise, these principles might be appealed to, as well to sanction the enslavement of men, as the capture of wild beasts. Were it otherwise, the American people might be Constitutionally realizing the prophet's declaration: "they all lie in wait for blood: they hunt every man his brother with a net." But mere principles, whether in or out of the Constitution, do not avail to justify and uphold slavery. Says Lord Mansfield in the famous Somerset case: "The state of slavery is of such a nature, that it is incapable of being now introduced by courts of justice upon mere reasoning or inferences from any principles, natural or political; it must take its rise from positive law; the origin of it can in no country or age be traced back to any other source. A case so odious as the condition of slaves, must be taken strictly." Grotius says, that "slavery places man in an unnatural relation to man--a relation which nothing but positive law can sustain." All are aware, that, by the common law, man cannot have property in man; and that wherever that law is not counteracted on this point by positive law, "slaves cannot breathe," and their "shackles fall." I scarcely need add, that the Federal Constitution does, in the main, accord with the common law. In the words of a very able writer: "The common law is the grand element of the United States Constitution. All its fundamental provisions are instinct with its spirit; and its existence, principles, and paramount authority, are presupposed and assumed throughout the whole."

To argue the anti-slavery character of the Federal Constitution, it is not necessary to take the high ground of some, that whatever in the Constitution favors slavery is void, because opposed to the principles and general tenor of that instrument. Much less is it necessary to take the still higher ground, that every law in favor of slavery, in whatever code or connection it may be found, is utterly invalid because of its plain contravention of the law of nature. To maintain my position, that the Constitution is anti-slavery in its general character, and that constitutional slavery is, at the most, but an exception to that general character, it was not necessary to take either of these grounds; though, had I been disposed to take even the higher of them, I should not have lacked the countenance of the most weighty authorities. "The law of nature," says Blackstone, "being coeval with mankind, and dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times: no human laws are of any validity if contrary to this." The same writer says, that "The law of nature requires, that man should pursue his own true and substantial happiness." But that slavery allows this pursuit to its victims, no one will pretend. "There is a law," says Henry Brougham, "above all the enactments of human codes. It is the law written by the finger of God on the heart of man; and by that law, unchangeable and eternal, while men despise fraud, and loathe rapine, and abhor blood, they shall reject with indignation the wild and guilty phantasy, that man can hold property in man."

I add no more to what I have said on the subject of slavery in the District of Columbia, than to ask, as I have done in relation to the inter-state slave trade and the annexation of slave states, whether petitions for its abolition argue so great a contempt of the Constitution, and so entire a recklessness of propriety, as to merit the treatment which they receive at the hands of Congress. Admitting that Congress has not the constitutional power to abolish slavery in the District--admitting that it has not the constitutional power to destroy what itself has established--admitting, too, that if it has the power, it ought not to exercise it;--nevertheless, is the case so perfectly clear, that the petitioners for the measure deserve all the abuse and odium which their representatives in Congress heap upon them? In a word, do not the three classes of petitions to which you refer, merit, at the hands of those representatives, the candid and patient consideration which, until I read your acknowledgment, that, in relation to these petitions, "there is no substantial difference between" yourself and those, who are in favor of thrusting them aside undebated, unconsidered, and even unread, I always supposed you were willing to have bestowed on them?

I pass to the examination of your charges against the abolitionists.

They contemn the "rights of property."

This charge you prefer against the abolitionists, not because they believe that a Legislature has the right to abolish slavery, nor because they deny that slaves are legally property; for this obvious truth they do not deny. But you prefer it, because they believe that man cannot rightfully be a subject of property.

Abolitionists believe, to use words, which I have already quoted, that it is "a wild and guilty phantasy, that man can hold property in man." They believe, that to claim property in the exalted being, whom God has made in His own image, and but "a little lower than the angels," is scarcely less absurd than to claim it in the Creator himself. You take the position, that human laws can rightfully reduce a race of men to property; and that the outrage, to use your own language, is "sanctioned and sanctified" by "two hundred years" continuance of it. Abolitionists, on the contrary, trace back man's inalienable self-ownership to enactments of the Divine Legislator, and to the bright morning of time, when he came forth from the hand of his Maker, "crowned with glory and honor," invested with self-control, and with dominion over the brute and inanimate creation. You soothe the conscience of the slaveholder, by reminding him, that the relation, which he has assumed towards his down-trodden fellow-man, is lawful. The abolitionist protests, that the wickedness of the relation is none the less, because it is legalized. In charging abolitionists with condemning "the rights of property," you mistake the innocent for the guilty party. Were you to be so unhappy as to fall into the hands of a kidnapper, and be reduced to a slave, and were I to remonstrate, though in vain, with your oppressor, who would you think was the despiser of "the rights of property"--myself, or the oppressor? As you would judge in that case, so judges every slave in his similar case.

The man-stealer's complaint, that his "rights of property" in his stolen fellow men are not adequately respected by the abolitionist, recalls to my mind a very similar, and but little more ludicrous case of conscientious regard for the "rights of property." A traveler was plundered of the whole of his large sum of money. He pleaded successfully with the robber for a little of it to enable him to reach his home. But, putting his hand rather deeper into the bag of stolen coins than comported with the views of the robber, he was arrested with the cry, "Why, man, have you no conscience?" You will perhaps inquire, whether abolitionists regard all the slaves of the South as stolen--as well those born at the South, as those, who were confessedly stolen from Africa? I answer, that we do--that every helpless new-born infant, on which the chivalry of the South pounces, is, in our judgment, the owner of itself--that we consider, that the crime of man-stealing which is so terribly denounced in the Bible, does not consist, as is alleged, in stealing a slave from a third person, but in stealing him from himself--in depriving him of self control, and subjecting him, as property, to the absolute control of another. Joseph's declaration, that he "was stolen," favors this definition of man-stealing. Jewish Commentators authorise it. Money, as it does not own itself, cannot be stolen from itself But when we reflect, that man is the owner of himself, it does not surprise us, that wresting away his inalienable rights--his very manhood--should have been called man-stealing.