THE LAWS OF A PUBLIC NATURE: WITH A COPIOUS INDEX. V. 36 COMPILED FROM AUTHENTIC MATERIALS. PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY GALES AND SEATON. 1855. FEBRUARY, 1820. Admission of Missouri. H. of R. the United States, for the slaves were considered supreme tribunal has lately declared a different and protected as property on both sides of the opinion? How easy also might the obligation of Spanish line, and the emigrants from the United the State magistrates and judges to execute the States found the additional quantity of granted laws of the Union be established, although denied land they could acquire for every slave, made their by the most respectable authorities in the States? removal advantageous. Who, then, under these Indeed, the admission of precedent as authority on circumstances, would have thought the property such topics would ripen the confederacy into that of slaves insecure by the provision in the treaty for condition, at no very distant period, in which it the maintenance and security of property? An- might be asserted that the powers of Congress, like terior to the treaty of cession the citizens of the those of the British Parliament, had their base in old United States received large sums of money precedent, and not in the grants of our written for slaves sold and transported by the avenue of Constitution. I am, however, wrong in wasting the Mississippi to Louisiana; and had the treaty pre- time in exceptions against the improper use of preserved a total silence, with regard to the protec- cedents; for, with the admission that precedents tion of property, it would be irreconcileable with could as well have place in giving birth to politijustice that we should first sell those slaves to the cal power as in the regulation of confessed powers, inhabitants, and, after securing the price, proceed the restrictionists will acquire nothing serviceable to emancipate them, or lessen their utility or value to them, because precedents are in no case valuable by emancipating their descendants. We are asked unless considered as adjustments, on mature delibto bind, limit, or manacle the proposed State of eration, of contested questions; whereas, the peoMissouri. Are we to do so because we are more ple of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, having consented trustworthy respecting their own interests than to all the regulations sought for by Congress, and themselves? We have legislated over the people those regulations being called into existence, as it of that Territory for seventeen years, and, during were, by their request, the question of the power of all that time, our humanity slumbered. We suf- Congress was not disputed or discussed. It is adfered slaves to pass the Mississippi, and thereby mitted that the people of Missouri are unwilling to enhanced the price of our lands; and, in propor- be restricted, and the question now first presents tion as we anticipate the closing the land sales, itself as to our Constitutional power to impose the and the cessation of our interest in permitting restriction without their consent. slaves to go, our humane sympathies are excited The view which I have submitted suffices, in until we at last become so willing to prohibit sla- my humble opinion, to show that the position asvery that we contemplate a new sort of State, with sumed by the restrictionists is not susceptible of only a portion of the features and capacities re- aid from precedents, and if it was, that there are tained by the other parties to our great compact. no legitimate or proper precedents to aid it; and I will now give attention to what gentlemen here I would be willing to rest this topic, were it who favor the restriction have urged, on the score not for the strange and objectionable inferences of precedent. They say they are authorized, from which gentlemen strive to deduce from the ordithe restrictions imposed on Ohio, Indiana, and Il-nance of 1787, for the government of the territory linois, to build the power of Congress to adopt the northwest of the Ohio river. The fourth section amendment of the gentleman from New York on of that ordinance declares "that certain articles precedents. Precedents may be useful to impart shall be considered as articles of compact between to free government uniform and steady nerves, and the original States and the people and States of to guard against the encroachments of prejudice that Territory, and forever remain unalterable, and passion. There can, however, be no prece- unless by common consent:" and the sixth article dent in relation to the powers of our national com- declares that "there shall be neither slavery nor inpact of such antiquity as to acquire any great por- voluntary servitude in the territory." tion 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 shown 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 showing that the State Legislatures could pass bankrupt laws, which they have always done, although the 16th CoN, 1st SESS.-41 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 inquiry as must obviate the error. I contend that the sixth article of the ordinance, whatever be its mode of expression, was temporary SLC40 |
