Daily National Intelligencer

MR. PINDALL'S SPEECH.—CONCLUDED,

We have long been convinced that ours is the only free country on earth; that the colonies adjacent to us are willing to become ours by revolt or otherwise, and that the advantage of such a connection is incalculable to them. Let us, however, beware of the injustice to which we may be tempted by national pride. It is certain that Louisiana has been aggrandized by her connection with the United States, but a review of her condition previous to her change of masters, may occasion a doubt whether the old inhabitants on whose behalf the stipulations of the treaty were inserted, were improved in their circumstances by the cession. The Spanish government afforded the inhabitants their lands gratuitously. By the ordinance of 1793, the inhabitants of Louisiana and the Floridas were admitted to a free commerce with Europe and America. No exception as to the articles sent or to be received. Tobacco and all other articles, the introduction of which into Spain had been prohibited from other places, were allowed to be taken from these provinces. The importation of foreign rice into Spain was prohibited for the avowed purpose of encouraging its growth in Louisiana and the Floridas; all articles exported from Spain to these provinces were free of duty, and a drawback of the duties which had been paid on foreign articles was allowed. The articles exported from those provinces to Spain were free of duty, whether consumed in Spain, or re-exported to foreign countries. The same ordinance had also provided that a preference should be given to all the productions of Louisiana and the Floridas, by prohibiting their importation from foreign countries, whenever those provinces should produce sufficient quantities for the consumption of Spain. The governments of these provinces were mild and protective, having been guided by a policy which afforded a security against Indian depredation, which had not always been the good fortune of our frontiers. I think, if this people were indeed miserable, their sufferings were not imputable to their old government. We have divorced them from their ancient associations, and given birth and encouragement in that country to new objects of emulation, by engaging to couple their destiny (in the language of Governor Claiborne) with our own unexampled prosperity, and the world must now witness with what sincerity or ill faith, we are to meet the demand for a performance of our compact.

How is it, sir, that this government attempts to prohibit slavery in the country west of the Mississippi? Our government knew in the acquisition of the country that the people held slaves, by a title equally legitimate with their claim to their lands and cattle. Indeed, the American government previously well knew, that species of property had met with extraordinary encouragement by the Spanish authorities; for, the importation of slaves into Louisiana had been admitted free of duty, and even the exportation of silver to purchase slaves was tolerated, which regulations were known to our government, as appears by the letter of Mr. Short, the American minister at Madrid to our Secretary of State, dated the first July, 1793. Also, besides the land granted to emigrants, for cultivation and improvements, an additional quantity was granted to the master for every slave removed into Louisiana. The Spanish treaties with the Indian tribes had made effectual provision for the ample security of the property on the savage frontier, as is manifest by the treaties of 1784, between the Spanish authorities and the Tallapoosa, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and other frontier tribes. Our government was apprised of these treaties; our minister at Madrid having transmitted copies of them to the Secretary of State, in 1793; and indeed the treaty of 1795 between Spain and the United States, in its fifth article, has a recognition of, or at least reference to, those Indian treaties.

The American government, with full knowledge of all the circumstances to which I have referred, expressly stipulated in the treaty, by which it acquired Louisiana, that the inhabitants should be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their property. Yet the amendment of the gentleman from New York, aims to vanquish that property. This clause of the treaty has, in my humble opinion, been greatly maltreated in the speech delivered at the last session, in one branch of Congress, by an honorable member from one of the most populous states of the Union. It cannot be improper to have an allusion to it now, as its sentiments are not different from those espoused by the restrictionists, in support of this amendment. It was said, and is yet urged, that the stipulation to maintain and protect the inhabitants in their property, could be only applied to the slaves held by them at the date of the treaty.

This niggardly attempt to shelter our government from the manifest import of its own obligation, and from what would have been its duty, without express stipulation, is too well adapted to excite a feeling, in which I shall not permit me self to indulge. The inhabitants of Louisiana will naturally ask themselves how this comports with the professions of the Chief Magistrate of the Union, who, in announcing our possession of the country, congratulated the nation on the acquisition of new brethren to partake of the blessings of freedom and self-government. They must arrive at the melancholy conclusion, that we consider the treaty of cession, as articles of capitulation of a fallen enemy. Nor, as articles of capitulation, could we, in conscience, insist for this limited, or rather mangled, interpretation. Even a robber, who had received his black mail, or extorted revenue, on a promise that he would not depredate your property, would be disgraceful among his comrades, by a quibble or pretence that you were only to be safe in your property to day, but that to-morrow was a different thing. To what condition would society be reduced if public assurances for the protection of property, only applied to the property held at the instant? Every barter or exchange of property, would exempt us from the protection. Children would not be entitled to the benefit of the treaty, if born after its date, and all who became inhabitants or citizens after its date, would be excluded from the treaty and from the rights of citizens. Their lands are not secured otherwise than their slaves, and would, therefore, be subject to the same confiscation. The same interpretation, if applied to that portion of the federal constitution which secures private property, would only afford protection to the property held in 1787, when the constitution was made, and, by the same rule, we must be deprived of all authority over the territories, for the clause giving to Congress authority to make needful rules and regulations to govern and dispose of the territories, being adopted in 1787, could not be extended to Louisiana, acquired afterwards. A free government protects or affects the property of its citizens, through the medium of its laws, and, in that respect, has a discretionary power to make, alter, and repeal those laws. The sovereign authority makes treaties as well as laws, and if such treaty contains a promise to maintain and protect property, it evidently relates to the discretion of the sovereign, to make laws affecting property, and includes a pledge of faith for the continuance of the laws, under which property is held and protected. But, if the infraction of such treaty be designed, the sovereign authority proceeds to impair or alter the laws for the protection of property, and has no other means of violating such a treaty.

We violate the treaty of cession, if we repeal the laws of Louisiana, which maintain and protect their property. France, in 1762, ceded this same province of Louisiana to Spain, by a treaty, with injunctions for the protection of property; and, in proof of the sense entertained by the parties, of the import of that treaty, I refer to the letter of the King of France to L'Abbadie, the commandant of the province, to deliver up the possession, and expressing the king's expectation that the magistracy would continue to administer justice according to the laws, forms, and usages, of the colony.

The cession by Virginia, to Congress, of the northwest territory, dated March, 1784, provides that the French, inhabitants, and other settlers of the Kaskaskias, St. Vincents, and the neighboring villages, who had professed themselves citizens of Virginia, should have their property secured, and be protected in the enjoyment of their rights and liberties.

When Congress, by the ordinance of 1787, established laws for the government of the territory, it expressed a proviso that they should not be construed to infringe on the laws affecting the property of those inhabitants. In the same cession, from Virginia, there were other stipulations required, on the part of Congress, in relation, too, to the mere advantage of the inhabitants of the ceded territory, in like manner as the stipulations in the cession from France contained clauses for the protection of property and for incorporation in the Union, for the mere benefit of the inhabitants. But, when Congress became desirous to exercise a more ample discretion as to the circumstances under which the new state of the northwest territory should be admitted, it made application to Virginia, being the other party to the contract, for her consent, as will be seen by the resolution of the old Congress, of July the 7th, 1786.

Yet the advocates of restriction do not think of applying either to France or the inhabitants of Louisiana for consent, to the exercise of regulations which repeal the treaty of cession. This nation, whether considered with regard to its municipal institutions, or its character arising from its diplomatic intercourse, is the last from which the world could expect a disregard of public faith, by a violation of the lawful and pre-existing relations between the people of Missouri and their slaves.

Previous to the treaty of cession, it was known to all the world that these states recognized slaves as property, and, indeed, that the political bond which knotted together their interests and energies, had some of its most conspicuous features in an adjustment of its proportions to the interests or rights of slave-holders.

The first essay by this government, of its diplomatic correspondence with any European nation, after the adoption of the constitution, is found in an effort to obtain from the British government compensation for slaves carried off by the King's troops, in evacuating the country, for which I quote the correspondence of the President of the United States with Gouverneur Morris, our confidential agent in Europe, in 1789. Our government, in 1791, through the agency of Mr. Seagrove, its public commissioner, negotiated with the Governor of East Florida, to issue such proclamations and permanent orders as would prevent fugitive slaves from the United States from taking shelter in Florida; and our treaties with the bordering Indian nations have made effectual provision against the violation of property in slaves, for which, see the treaties with the Delawares, Cherokees, Chickasaws, Creeks, and other nations.

The inhabitants of Louisiana, before the cession, had acquired a great portion of their slaves from the United States, for slaves were considered and protected as property, on both sides of the Spanish line, and the emigrants from the United States found the additional quantity of granted land they could acquire for every slave, made their removal advantageous. Who, then, under these circumstances, would have thought the property of slaves insecure, by the provision in the treaty for the maintenance and security of property? Anterior to the treaty of cession, the citizens of the old United States received large sums of money for slaves sold and transported by the avenue of the Mississippi, to Louisiana, and had the treaty preserved a total silence, with regard to the protection of property, it would be irreconcilable with justice that we should first sell those slaves to the inhabitants, and, after securing the price, proceed to emancipate them, or lessen their utility or value by emancipating their descendants.

We are asked to bind, limit, or manacle the proposed state of Missouri. Are we to do so because we are more trustworthy respecting their own interests than themselves? We have legislated over the people of that territory for 17 years, and during all that time our humanity slumbered. We suffered slaves to pass the Mississippi, and thereby enhanced the price of our lands; and in proportion as we anticipate the closing the land sales, and the cessation of our interest in permitting slaves to go, our humane sympathies are excited, until we at last become so willing to prohibit slavery, that we contemplate a new sort of state, with only a portion of the features and capacities retained by the other parties to our great compact.

I will now give attention to what gentlemen who favor the restriction have urged, on the score of precedent. They say they are authorized, from the restrictions imposed on Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, to build the power of Congress to adopt the amendment of the gentleman from New York, on precedents. Precedents may be useful to impart to free government uniform and steady nerves, and to guard against the encroachments of prejudice and passion. There can, however, be no precedent in relation to the powers of our national compact, of such antiquity as to acquire any great portion of authority when unaccompanied by demonstrations of their orthodoxy; for the constitution was only adopted in 1787, since which, and until this winter, the history and journal of the convention have been secret. But, in subscribing to the authority and utility of precedents, it should be remembered that they are not to transcend their legitimate sphere. When a jurisdiction, power, or authority, is found, or known to exist, precedents are interposed, that it may not be perverted by the use of arbitrary discretion; but this jurisdiction or power must be shewn to exist before we admit its need of precedents for its regulation.

An attempt is here made, not to regulate the powers and business of Congress by precedents, but to derive those powers also from the same source. If precedents were lawful weapons in accomplishing such an object, how easy would be the task of shewing that the state legislatures could pass bankrupt laws, (which they have always done,) although the supreme tribunal has lately declared a different opinion? How easy also might the obligation of the state magistrates and judges to execute the laws of the Union be established, although denied by the most respectable authorities in the states? Indeed, the admission of precedent as authority on such topics would ripen the confederacy into that condition, at no very distant period, in which it might be asserted that the powers of Congress, like those of the British Parliament, had their base in precedent, and not in the grants of our written constitution.

I am, however, wrong in wasting time in exceptions against the improper use of precedents; for, with an admission that precedents could as well have place in giving birth to political power as in the regulation of confessed powers, the restrictionists will acquire nothing serviceable to them, because precedents are in no case valuable, unless considered as adjustments, on mature deliberation, of contested questions; whereas the people of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, having consented to all the regulations sought for by Congress, and those regulations being called into existence, as it were, by their request, the question of the power of Congress was not disputed or discussed. It is admitted that the people of Missouri are unwilling to be restricted, and the question now first presents itself, as to our constitutional power to impose the restriction without their consent.

The view which I have submitted suffices, in my humble opinion, to shew that the position assumed by the restrictionists is not susceptible of aid from precedents, and if it was, that there are no legitimate or proper precedents to aid it; and here I would be willing to rest this topic, were it not for the strange and objectionable inferences which gentlemen strive to deduce from the ordinance of 1787, for the government of the territory northwest of the Ohio river. The 4th section of that ordinance declares 'That certain articles shall be considered as articles of compact between the original states and the people and states of that territory, and forever remain unalterable, unless by common consent:' and the 6th article declares, 'There shall be neither slavery or involuntary servitude in the territory.'

Gentlemen insist that this article restrained the people of Ohio, and the other states formed in that territory, from adopting any provision inconsistent with it in their state constitutions, without the consent of Congress, and at the same time afforded an instance of the authority of Congress thus to restrain the new states. This aspect of the ordinance is certainly plausible at first view, but not dangerous; for the idea of a power in Congress not only to impose on the people of a state a constitution not dictated by, or growing out of the federal compact, but to impose such arbitrary constitution on a people before they have sprung into existence, as was the case with regard to the then future or expected communities of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, is apt to shock the imagination, and stimulate such further enquiry as must obviate the error.

I contend that the 6th article of the ordinance, whatever be its mode of expression, was temporary in its operation, and only intended to be adopted for the government of the territory whilst a territory, dependent on the legislation of Congress, and would have been no part of the state constitution of Ohio, unless by the free adoption of the people of that state. To give it this interpretation consists both with the obligations of Congress, and the peculiar relation between Congress and the territory. It will consist, in the first place, with the obligation incurred by Congress in the acceptance of the cession of the territory from Virginia, the deed of cession having provided that the states to be formed in the territory should be distinct, republican states, and admitted members of the federal Union, having the same rights of sovereignty, freedom, and independence, as the other states, which they would not have, unless permitted to govern themselves in all respects where not restrained by the federal obligation.

I say, in the second place, that the interpretation I give best consists with the relations which existed between Congress and the territory; for the communities forming in the territory, being destined for free states, and Congress having only a temporary power over the territory, it was not presumable Congress, in such circumstances, could desire to make an everlasting regulation—no, not even by the consent of the people, who were not then in being, or in a condition to do any thing which would bind the future people of the country, assembled in convention.

Permit me now, sir, to beg a more particular examination of the ordinance of 1787, and a view of its parts in their just distribution. The ordinance comprehends, 1st. A constitution and bill of rights; 2dly. Provisions for the creation of new states; and, 3dly. A recognition of the mutual interests and relations which shall subsist between the new states and Congress.

The two first parts, the constitution and bill of rights, and the provisions for the birth of new states, were intended as temporary regulations. The third, or the part in relation to the respective or mutual interests of Congress and the new states, were to remain perpetual.

1st. The ordinance comprehends a constitution and bill of rights. The constitution is found in the erection of a territorial government. In prescribing the respective departments of that government, as that there shall be a governor to be appointed by Congress, who should have the appointment of magistrates and civil officers; that there should be a general assembly, to be elected by the free white male inhabitants of the counties and townships, to serve for the term of two years; that there should be a legislative council, to consist of a certain number, and appointed as therein prescribed; that the council and general assembly should have legislative powers, subject, however, to the negative of the governor; that there should be a secretary, judges, &c.; that there should be no law affecting private contracts nor contrary to the ordinance, &c. Here, then, we have a territorial government, with legislative, executive, and judiciary powers; but the ordinance affords more.

The framers of this territorial constitution were men fashioned after the manners and notions of our English ancestors, who have always conceived that a grant or recognition of legislative power should be accompanied by a magna charta, or bill of rights, declaratory of certain fundamental principles, by which those entrusted with such important power should be guided. They therefore furnish in the ordinance a bill of rights, which, like similar declarations theretofore adopted by many of the states, was an imitation of the declarations of magna charta, and of the bill of rights of the first year of William and Mary. We accordingly find it provided that the people shall be entitled to the habeas corpus, trial by jury, representation, judicial proceedings according to the course of the common law: that bail should be allowed, fines be moderate, cruel or unusual punishments not inflicted; that no man should be deprived of liberty or property but by the judgment of his peers or the laws of the land, &c.

2d. The ordinance has provisions for the creation of new states, which are found in the 5th article, prescribing the time and circumstances in which the new states should be formed.

3d. The ordinance contains a recognition of certain relations of interest between the general government and the new states, which is found in the 4th article, and were intended to remain perpetual. But an examination of the provisions of the 4th article (which all will agree was to be perpetual) will prove the just caution of Congress in abstaining from all pretence of binding those people after the period designed for their emancipation. For these perpetual provisions are mere declarations of the obvious rights and obligations which would at all events have governed their mutual relations, if not inserted in the ordinance, although expressed to remove doubts and give assurances to those who might feel concerned; such as, that the new state should for ever remain a part of the confederacy: that the inhabitants should contribute their portion of the national debt; that the new states should not interfere with the primary disposal of the soil, or tax the lands of the United States; the clause also declaring that the navigable rivers should be common highways, was the proper result of the 4th article of the old act of confederation of the states.

That so much of the ordinance as I have designated under my 2d head, which prescribes the time and manner in which the new states shall be formed, was intended to be temporary, and expire with its execution, whenever the territory became competent to form a state government, will not be questioned.

That so much of the ordinance contained under my first division as created a constitution for the territorial government, was only intended as a temporary provision, is also evident, as no one will contend that the territorial constitution and departments could continue after the formation of a state constitution and government.

That so much of the ordinance (arranged also under my first head) as is resolvable into a bill of rights, is temporary with regard to duration, would seem to follow the admission that the territorial constitution was temporary, especially if I am right in supposing (as I have done) that the object and use of the bill of rights was a declaration for greater certainty of the great principles which was to govern the exercise of the powers granted by the constitution. The bill of rights would then only retain its being, whilst the constitution, to which it is a predicate, remained in force, which would of course be during the continuance of the territorial government, and no longer.

But, as my immediate object now is to arrive at the result that the bill of rights was not binding on the people of Ohio after their competency to form a state constitution, my purpose will be as well accomplished by the suggestion of an idea not so intimately connected with duration.

Bills of rights, or declarations of right, have been resorted to by our ancestors, to secure themselves against the abuse or oppression of legislative or executive authorities. They were the bonds of the sovereign, held by the people, as a fence against him. They conferred no legislative or executive powers; but, so far as they operated, constrained those powers. They differed from our modern American constitutions, as an imperfect does from a perfect right or obligation, or as a moral obligation is different from a legal obligation; for if the bill of rights was transcended, the excess was morally wrong; but, if the constitution be transcended, its legal operation is felt by annulling the excess of authority.

As a bill of rights imposes no obligation, except on the government, none other can violate it. The people can violate no obligation in relation to it, for they are under no such obligation. It is a schedule of their rights, not of their duties; those rights which our ancestors were used to say 'doth appertain to the people of this realm.' Who ever heard of the people being bound by a bill of rights?

Gentlemen will have observed that the three-fold division to which I have resorted is sufficient to comprehend the whole of the ordinance of 1787; and we have only to enquire to which of the three respective heads is the 6th article, inhibiting slavery, referable. It is not referable to the third head, which comprehends those interests, claims, and obligations, which arise out of the relations between Congress and the new states. The obligation to discharge a portion of the federal debt, to exempt public lands from taxation, and open the navigable rivers to the whole continent, &c. were objects affecting the permanent relations to the general government; but whether slavery should exist in that country, like the provisions of the habeas corpus, jury trial, &c. only concerned that temporary connection springing from, and consequently expiring with, the territorial dependency.

I have, moreover, shewn, that, in adjusting all other relations of interest and obligation between Congress and the new states, (which class of provisions I admitted to be perpetual) Congress confined themselves to a mere declaration or recognition of rights and duties; which would have existed although the ordinance had been silent. If, therefore, the 6th article, containing a new and authoritative mandate, be forced in the same class, it would furnish a manifest anomalism.

The inhibition of slavery has no connection with the second division of the ordinance, which only regulates the creation of new states. But the first head comprehends the inhibition. It is either a part of the constitution or of the bill of rights found in the ordinance, nor is it material which; for, if it be a clause of the constitution, its operation was to restrain the territorial legislature from the toleration of slavery, and expired with the government to which it gave limits. But, if it is to be considered a portion of the bill of rights, it expired with the extinction of the powers to which it was annexed as a restraint, whether we are to look for those powers in the territorial government, or in the temporary authority of Congress to legislate over the country in its territorial grade, and, indeed, as an article of the bill of rights, never had any force against the people themselves.

The preamble to the articles in the ordinance expresses the motives to be, for extending the fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty, which form the basis whereon these republics, their laws, and constitutions, are erected; to fix and establish those principles as the basis of all laws, constitutions, and governments, which forever hereafter shall be formed in the territory, &c. And this preamble, which good men might call a declaration of the sense of Congress of the fundamental rights of a people who stood then in the grade of colonists; which bad men would denominate a mere flourish; and which, at all events, was not intended to have any effect, as it contains nothing like an enacting clause or precept; has, nevertheless, been pressed into the service of our opponents, as a proof that the articles of the ordinance, thus prefaced, became a part of the constitutions of the states to be thereafter formed in the territory by a people who, as yet, had no existence.

The Congress possessing but a limited and temporary authority, might exercise that authority with exalted and commendable views, or, indeed, might form an expectation that its temporary authority could be so exercised, during the infancy of the western settlement, as to incite moral sentiments and habits in the people, calculated, in the end, to produce a relish for institutions which were considered desirable by men of fashion in the political world. But Congress knew, that it could not, in the exercise of its most enlarged powers, pass laws to be irrevocable by its successors, much less by the people in convention.

Congress, during the colonial condition of the territories, claimed and exercised the power of changing or modifying the constitutions of the territorial governments, instances of which are found in the acts of February 26th, 1803; March 3d, 1811: and May 26th, 1812. It was, therefore, politic to afford emigrants an assurance that no change of constitution should be made, except on the basis of certain principles. This assurance is given by Congress, being one party, and was obligatory on that party. The preamble speaks of laws and constitutions, considering them as synonymous. It immediately follows the constitution made by Congress for the territory, and evidently had no relation to state constitutions, for the contemplated states are not referred to in the preamble nor had they been mentioned in any previous part of the ordinance.

The preamble declares that the articles of the ordinance shall remain unalterable forever, unless by common consent. Yes, forever, if you please; for there are rights and interests depending on the force and obligation of the temporary laws of Congress, which must live forever:—such are the grants of land, and promises of public advantages to the inhabitants; but with whom did Congress make this compact of several articles? The ordinance answers the question: 'With the inhabitants of the territory, and the future states to be formed therein,' for so it says. Such of the provisions, then, as, from their nature, could only be applicable to the territory, and such as were expressly applied by Congress only to the territory, would, of necessity, expire when the territorial government should cease to exist, whilst such provisions as were applicable to the future states would remain.

An attention to the phraseology of the articles of the ordinance, sufficiently manifest, in the recital of the successive provisions, which are applicable to the territory and which to the states. Thus, the clause requiring the payment of a portion of the federal debt of the Union, expressly speaks of the people of the territory, and also of the new states. The inhibition against interfering in the disposal of the soil, not only speaks of the territorial government, but of the new states. In the recognition of the subjection of the people to the old confederacy of the Union, not only the territory, but the states to be formed therein, are spoken of.

But turn to the provisions of articles of the ordinance which I have insisted are temporary, and in the nature of a bill of rights, and mark the difference in phraseology. As when the habeas corpus, jury trial, &c. are secured, and excessive bail, cruel punishments, &c. prohibited, the inhabitants of the territory are only mentioned; not a word is there said of new states. Turn, also, to the 6th article, which inhibits slavery: it speaks of the territory, and says not a syllable of new states.

I have not intended to dwell upon other objects connected with this question, because, being convinced that Congress has no power to impose the restriction, and that, if it had power, a reference to the faith of solemn obligations would compel us to negative the present attempt, it would seem superfluous, if not idle, to travel into the expediency of the measure. But, if the Constitution of the United States and the French treaty are both in favor of the power you now attempt to exercise, it would remain for the friends of this government to decide on the policy of restraining the liberty of the people and states, by a too copious use of powers which have hitherto been dormant.

Any attempt to reform the manners or character of the people, by extirpating slavery, or by other means, will, at any time, be found a task, the performance of which will bring us into collision with long rooted prejudices, as well as local jealousies, and must draw the government from that lofty and impartial stand which it ought to sustain as the arbiter of differences between the respective states.

Is there not as great danger to this government itself from the intemperate use of constitutional powers, as from the infraction of that instrument? The first abuse must be borne, until its continuance engenders against government a spirit of distrust, or indeed enmity, whilst the last is apt to be corrected either by the judiciary, or a full investigation of the constitution.

The old Congress, in adopting the ordinance for the government of the North West Territory, were tempted by moral considerations, in relation to slavery, which can have no weight with us. for Congress having now the undoubted right to prohibit the importation of slaves, can, by the due exercise of that right, make it immaterial (on the score of the increase of slavery,) whether slaves are removed to the new, or retained in the old states. But the states under the old confederation, had a right to import slaves from Africa or elsewhere; and the Congress, by shutting the western market against their admission, exercised its only means of retarding the increase of slaves in the country.

A gentleman from Pennsylvania, (Mr. Sergeant,) says the inhibition of slavery in the territorial ordinance, was the result of compromise. He has, however, failed to prove this assertion; nor can I conceive how the inhibition could have sprung from compromise, or how the gentleman would aid his side of the question by making it a compromise. What was compromised? if it was a concession on the part of Virginia, or the south, what was the equivalent received by the south? Virginia had previously prohibited the importation of slaves, but, inasmuch as she could not prevent their importation by other states, she was willing to lessen the demand for them.

Virginia, always since 1699, has evinced her anxiety to abrogate the slave trade, and exerted herself most to prohibit the trade, at a time when Pennsylvania and other states now so forward in establishing restriction on Missouri, did not discourage, but rather promoted the importation of slaves. In the second year of George the 2d, and during several years thereafter, whilst Virginia imposed as heavy a duty on the importation of slaves as the Crown, influenced as it was by the British merchants, would permit, with a view to a prohibition of the trade, Pennsylvania imposed a duty, which, reduced to an ad valorem impost, did not exceed about 4 per centum, by which means this province had a transit duty on Virginia slaves, and eventually kept the trade open between Africa and the country south of Susquehanna, notwithstanding the struggle of Virginia against it.

It is insisted that the admission of slaves in Missouri and the west, will open a wide market, and encourage the smuggling of foreign slaves, in violation of the laws of the Union. We should be sure of the truth of this anticipation before we act on its basis, and even when assured of its truth, it would furnish but an eccentric excuse for legislation, in which we would allege our own imbecility and incompetency to prevent an illicit trade, by ordinary means, as an apology for measures of extraordinary inconvenience and embarrassment to the southern section of the Union.

But, will it be pretended that this government is incompetent to prohibit the slave trade, unless by these restrictions on states. None are authorized to assume that position until he shall have shewn that the other and ordinary powers of the government have been exhausted without curing the evil. Although government has done something, it has by no means done its utmost to prohibit the trade. I had the honor last year to submit a proposal to punish those engaged in the slave trade, with death; and, although the proposition was adopted in this House, it was rejected in the Senate.

Two years since, when gentlemen objected against the bill for the recovery of fugitive slaves, that it might afford a cover for kidnapping, I submitted, in connection with that bill, a section inflicting the punishment of death on the offence of kidnapping. But that punishment was thought too severe; and the House, on the motion of a gentleman from Vermont, struck out the capital punishment, and inserted two or three years imprisonment.—

The slave holding state of Virginia has made kidnapping a capital offence, whilst gentlemen from the north, who abhor slavery, cannot be brought to punish that offence otherwise than as a trivial misdemeanor. The laws of the Union to prohibit the importation of slaves have generally left their whole efficacy to the vigilance and virtue of common informers, who would seldom be found to carry prosecutions to a termination in sections of the country where the slave trade was not unpopular.

Under some of our laws the trade itself was carried on; one of the southern states having carried the sale and detention in slavery of a great number of imported Africans, under the express provisions of an act of Congress. Indeed, we were informed last year by the Chairman of the committee on the slave trade, that the importation of slaves had been found profitable, even by suffering the laws of Congress to be executed, and submitting to the judgment of the court in prosecutions under them. We are not entitled to talk of the inefficacy of our ordinary powers, or from hence to infer an authority to ourselves incompatible with the interests of many of the states, until we shall have fully exercised those powers, and cured the defects of our past legislation.

[DEBATE TO BE CONTINUED.]