Presidential Candidates: / Containing Sketches, Biographical, Personal and Political, of Prominent Candidates for the Presidency in 1860

by D. W. Bartlett

"We need not refer to the mercenary spirit which introduced the infamous traffic in slaves, to show the degradation of negro slavery in our country. This system was imposed upon our colonial settlements by the mother country, and it is due to truth to say that the commercial colonies and States were chiefly engaged in the traffic. But we know as a historical fact, that James Madison, that great and good man, a leading member in the Federal Convention, was solicitous to guard the language of that instrument so as not to convey the idea that there could be property in man.

"I prefer the lights of Madison, Hamilton, and Jay, as a means of construing the Constitution in all its bearings, rather than to look behind that period, into a traffic which is now declared to be piracy, and punished with death by Christian nations. I do not like to draw the sources of our domestic relations from so dark a ground. Our independence was a great epoch in the history of freedom; and while I admit the Government was not made especially for the colored race, yet many of them were citizens of the New England States, and exercised the rights of suffrage when the Constitution was adopted, and it was not doubted by any intelligent person that its tendencies would greatly ameliorate their condition.

"Many of the States, on the adoption of the Constitution, or shortly afterward, took measures to abolish slavery within their respective jurisdictions; and it is a well-known fact that a belief was cherished by the leading men, South as well as North, that the institution of slavery would gradually decline, until it would become extinct. The increased value of slave labor, in the culture of cotton and sugar, prevented the realization of this expectation. Like all other communities and States, the South were influenced by what they considered to be their own interests.

"But if we are to turn our attention to the dark ages of the world, why confine our view to colored slavery? On the same principles, white men were made slaves. All slavery has its origin in power, and is against right."

In reference to the power of Congress to prohibit slavery in the territories, we quote the subjoined paragraphs from Judge McLean's opinion:

"On the 13th of July, the ordinance of 1787 was passed, 'for the government of the United States territory northwest of the river Ohio,' with but one dissenting vote. This instrument provided there should be organized in the territory not less than three nor more than five States, designating their boundaries. It was passed while the federal convention was in session, about two months before the Constitution was adopted by the convention. The members of the convention must therefore have been well acquainted with the provisions of the ordinance. It provided for a temporary government, as initiatory to the formation of State governments. Slavery was prohibited in the territory.

"Can any one suppose that the eminent men of the federal convention could have overlooked or neglected a matter so vitally important to the country, in the organization of temporary governments for the vast territory northwest of the river Ohio? In the 3d section of the 4th article of the Constitution, they did make provision for the admission of new States, the sale of the public lands, and the temporary government of the territory. Without a temporary government, new States could not have been formed, nor could the public lands have been sold.

"If the 3d section were before us now for consideration for the first time, under the facts stated, I could not hesitate to say there was adequate legislative power given in it. The power to make all needful rules and regulations is a power to legislate. This no one will controvert, as Congress cannot make 'rules and regulations,' except by legislation. But it is argued that the word territory is used as synonymous with the word land; and that the rules and regulations of Congress are limited to the disposition of lands and other property belonging to the United States. That this is not the true construction of the section appears from the fact that in the first line of the section 'the power to dispose of the public lands' is given expressly, and, in addition, to make all needful rules and regulations. The power to dispose of is complete in itself and requires nothing more. It authorizes Congress to use the proper means within its discretion, and any further provision for this purpose would be a useless verbiage. As a composition the Constitution is remarkably free from such a charge.

"The prohibition of slavery north of 36° 30', and of the State of Missouri, contained in the act admitting that State into the Union, was passed by a vote of 134, in the House of Representatives, to 42. Before Mr. Monroe signed the act, it was submitted by him to his Cabinet, and they held the restriction of slavery in a territory to be within the constitutional powers of Congress. It would be singular, if, in 1804, Congress had the power to prohibit the introduction of slaves in Orleans territory from any other part of the Union, under the penalty of freedom to the slave, if the same power embodied in the Missouri Compromise could not be exercised in 1820.

"But this law of Congress, which prohibits slavery north of Missouri and of 36° 30', is declared to have been null and void by my brethren. And this opinion is founded mainly, as I understand, on the distinction drawn between the ordinance of 1787 and the Missouri Compromise line. In what does the distinction consist? The ordinance, it is said, was a compact entered into by the confederated States before the adoption of the Constitution; and that in the cession of territory, authority was given to establish a territorial government.