Suppression of Slave Insurrections. (Const. Art. 1, sec. 8; Art. 4, sec. 4.)
"An Act to provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions," was approved May 2, 1792 (Act Const. 1792, chap. 28). Section first provides that, "In case of an insurrection in any State against the government thereof, it shall be lawful for the President of the United States, on application of the legislature of such State, or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened), to call forth such number of the militia of any other State or States as may be applied for, or as he may judge sufficient to suppress such insurrection." Precisely the same language is made use of in Stat. 1795, c. 101. By Act approved March 3, 1807 (Stat. 1807, c. 94), the President is authorized "in all cases of insurrection," "when it is lawful for him to call forth the militia for the purpose of suppressing the same," "to employ for the same purpose such part of the land or naval force of the United States as shall be judged necessary."
That these laws have been held to include an insurrection of slaves is indisputable. On receipt of the intelligence of Nat. Turner's insurrection in Southampton, Va., Col. House, then commanding at Fortress Monroe, set out with three companies of United States troops, for the purpose of suppressing the revolt. He was reinforced by a detachment from the United States ships Warren and Natchez, amounting in all to about three hundred men. With our troops and our officers we have actually aided the slaveholder in holding his fellow-man in slavery! We have actually done what our fathers engaged in the Constitution that we should do, namely, aid with the national strength in keeping the slaves in subjection!
CHAPTER XV.
THE CONSTITUTION ACCORDING TO THE EXPOSITION OF ITS FINAL INTERPRETER.
"The judicial department of the United States is, in the last resort, the final expositor of the Constitution as to all questions of a judicial nature. Were there no power to interpret, pronounce, and execute the law, the government would either perish through its own imbecility, as was the case with the articles of confederation, or other powers must be assumed by the legislative body, to the destruction of liberty."—Chancellor Kent.
The people of the United States, in adopting the Constitution, made one standard, one fundamental law, and only one. They gave to the government of the United States certain powers. They restricted it as to others. They placed certain prohibitions on the States. The Constitution was to be the one fundamental law of the land, to which all, as well States as people, should submit. Art. 6, sec. 2, provides that the "Constitution and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any thing in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding."
Who now is to tell us what this one standard is, to which all must submit, and which is thus to override all State Constitutions and all State laws? Is it the province of each individual to do it? Then we may have at this moment seventeen million different interpretations, and hence as many different Constitutions, each of which, however, is the supreme law of the land! Are the executive or judicial departments of the States the proper expounders? Then, at this moment, we may have only thirty different interpretations, twenty-nine of which must be wrong, because the supreme law can be but one.