Richmond Enquirer

RICHMOND, SEPTEMBER 5, 1820.

National Lotteries....The Constitution,

We give room to the following, promptly: and as cheerfully as the nature of the case will admit of....Since receiving it, we have seen Niles' Weekly Register of Saturday last, which contains the same opinion, preceded by the remarks which we made upon a National Lottery some time since. Mr. N. adds, "We wish that the practice of granting schemes to tempt the people to gamble was entirely done away." He publishes also "a transcript of the act to authorize the canal lottery, the drawing of which is speedily to commence." The "opinion" was given in respect to the lottery now drawing at Washington. There is a little difference in the manner of getting up these lotteries, but their essential parts are the same. In that which is about to be drawn, the authority is directly granted, for the purpose of making & completing the Washington Canal. We publish these articles at present without comment except to express our belief that the supreme court of the U.S, if consistent with its own doctrines about the bank, will certainly sanction those maintained in the opinion."

We regret to see such an opinion, with the names of five gentlemen to it who rank so high at the bar—one of them in particular, for whose name, and for whose republican principles, we owe the most sincere respect. For, if this opinion be received, it is in vain that Madison and Pendleton sought to lull the fears of the Virginia Convention on this clause of the constitution. Congress may do any thing in the District; and having done it, their power "knows no locality within the boundaries of the Union!!"" The states have no existence relatively to the effect of such a power." They are as if they were not.—But we cannot bend our minds to such an usurpation, and all that the ingenuity of Congress may make to grow out of it—an usurpation that fixes its lever upon this little point, to move, as it pleases, the state governments. This opinion, however, must receive a more formal investigation:

TO THE EDITORS OF THE ENQUIRER.

I herewith enclose you the Law Opinion respecting the Washington Lottery, for your perusal and publication.

Yours respectfully,

September 4.

By the constitution of the United States power is given to Congress "to exercise exclusive legislation, in all cases whatsoever, over such district (not exceeding ten miles square) as may by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States."

This clause was no doubt inserted in the Constitution, from the indispensable necessity which was felt to exist that the National Government should have entire authority in the place where it was to be located. It was a government established for national purposes, and it was fit and proper that the national legislature and the members of it should be entirely free from and unmolested by the authority or power of any state legislature.

By an act of Congress power is given to the corporation of the city of Washington to authorize the drawing of lotteries, for effecting any important improvement in the city, which the ordinary funds, or revenues, thereof will not accomplish— Provided that the amount to be raised in each year, shall not exceed the sum of ten thousand dollars, and provided, also, that the object for which the money is intended to be raised shall first be submitted to the President of the U. States, and shall be approved by him—under the power given by this act of Congress.

The corporation of the city of Washington have established lotteries for the purpose of effecting important improvements in the said city which the ordinary funds or revenue thereof, will not accomplish, and the object for which the money intended to be raised by the said lotteries, is to be applied, has been submitted to the President of the United States, and has been approved by him,

Have the legislatures of the individual states, power by any law which they can pass to prohibit the sale of the tickets in the lotteries thus established in the city of Washington?

We think the state legislatures have no such power. This is a lottery authorised by Congress, for the purpose of making important improvements in the city which may be styled the National City, in the improvement of which the nation is concerned. It is therefore a national lottery and authorised by a national legislature, and it would be monstrous if any state legislature could impede the execution of a law made for national purposes, relative to a district over which the national legislature have the exclusive right of legislation. Congress have a right to judge of the proper means of improving the seat of Government: they have the power of raising those means by any law not forbidden by the constitution—and no state legislature can consistently either with the letter or the spirit of the constitution interfere with the exercise of this power.

It may be conceded that the power of legislature over the District vested in Congress by the 17th clause of the 8th section and first article of the constitution, is local and territorial with reference to the sphere of its direct and immediate action, but this concession leaves the matter of the present inquiry as much at large as it was before, since it is still certain that the power itself is the power of the Union— that the whole nation are at once the grantees (and by their representatives) the depositaries of it: that the District upon which, or with a view to which it is executed, is entirely a National District, and that the sovereignty of Congress over it was communicated for national ends: but for the abovementioned clause in the constitution the territory included within the District of Columbia, would be liable to no other legislation by Congress than that which is expressly delegated to it by the constitution.