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to change any of the opinions which I have expressed in the house, either on the right of petition, or on the right of free discussion.

The institution of slavery, in common with the whole North, and a large proportion of the most intelligent of the South, including many of their most admired patriots and ardent democrats, I mean Thomas Jefferson and others of his school in politics, I have always regarded as a curse upon this nation, and particularly on those States within whose limits it exists. If God made of one blood all nations of the earth, slavery is an outrage on human nature. If the product of one's toil is the surest inducement to industry and economy, slavery is sure to blast with barrenness and poverty the land which it tills. If the onward progress of civilization and Christianity is not to be arrested before their mission is half accomplished, slavery is destined to disappear from the earth.

It seems to me that no man can have studied the history of his race, on whose mind any doubt remains of the correctness of these principles. The proof of their truth is written, in letters of light, on every page of the record.

My views of the manner in which this great national evil ought to be treated, are somewhat modified by the opinions which I hold, in common with all other democrats, on two important points of political doctrine, which I will try to explain so clearly that it shall be impossible to misunderstand my meaning.

1. As to the character of the Constitution of the United States. I hold the government of the United States to be a government of very limited powers. In the language of Mr. Jefferson, in his official opinion as secretary of State, against the constitutionality of a United States bank, dated February 15, 1791, "I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground, that all powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people.' (Tenth Amendment.) To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specifically drawn around the powers of congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition." (Jefferson's Writings, Vol. IV. page 523.)

The Hon. Henry Clay, in his argument against the constitutionality of the United States Bank, in 1811, remarked, that "the great advantage of our system of government over all others, is, that we have a written Constitution, defining its limits, and prescribing its authorities; and that however, for a time, faction may convulse the nation, and passion and party prejudice sway its functionaries, the season of reflection will recur, when calmly retracing their deeds, all aberrations from fundamental principles will be corrected. But once substitute practice for

principle; the expositions of the Constitution, for the text of the Constitution; and in vain shall we look for the instrument in the instrument itself. It will be as diffused and intangible as the pretended Constitu tion of England. I conceive, then, Sir, that we are not empowered by the Constitution, nor bound by any practice under it, to renew the charter of this bank."

By the same test by which Mr. Clay then tried the bank, I would try every question of congressional legislation, by "the text of the Constitution;" and if I should find that "we are not empowered by the Constitution" to adopt any measure, no matter how desirable that measure might be in itself, I should stop short at the threshold, and enter not where the Constitution did not bid me enter: not only because the last hope of human liberty depends upon the question, whether a written Constitution can be preserved inviolate, whether the people can fix limits to the powers of their government, and cause those limits to be permanently respected but also because no man takes any part in our State or national legislation, who has not first sworn a solemn oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, an oath which I have often taken, and from which there is no power on earth that can absolve me. I should protest, therefore, against any action by congress on slavery, or any other subject, which was not clearly warranted by the strictest construction of the Constitution.

2. The other point, to which I call your attention a moment, is the value of the Federal Union. So far as I can look forward, the preservation of the Union seems to be a necessary condition to the preservation of our liberties. There is a vicious tendency in every national government to augment its powers, and enlarge its sphere of action. Whatever promotes this tendency hastens the downfall of popular institutions, and the creation of an arbitrary power upon their ruins. Checks upon this tendency are the bulwarks of freedom. Now, I am satisfied that the impossibility of maintaining free governments in Europe has arisen from the frequency of war, and the constant liability to war among the neighboring nations. Mutual jealousy compels them to keep up vast standing armies, to raise immense revenues to pay them, to incur debts mortgaging the industry of future generations for the expense of killing their fathers, like the debt of Great Britain, nearly equal to all the specie on the face of the globe; and presiding over all this stupendous machinery of slaughter, and wielding this patronage, and these expenditures, and administering this national debt through a national bank or some such mighty engine, proudly rears itself a strong government, and tramples beneath its feet the rights of the people.

We owe it to our Union, that we are safe from these abominations.

The Union once broken up, standing armies, crushing taxes, a debt like a maelstrom, swallowing up the resources of the nation to defray the interest; government patronage sufficient to spread corruption into every village and hamlet in the country; all these must follow in every one of the new nations to be formed out of the fragments; and as the necessary consequence of all these, governments too strong to be controlled by any practicable checks to be set up against them.

In the treatment of this question, therefore, wisdom and discretion are no less necessary than courage and determination. It is a generally received rule of morals, that a man must be held to intend the known, necessary consequences of his actions. One who should act upon a contrary supposition would be considered insane. While therefore, the Union is to be regarded as the palladium of our liberties, he who should so conduct an ill-advised and unsuccessful attempt to liberate three millions of human beings, as to rend asunder the Union, and thereby bring down upon fourteen millions educated to the enjoyment of freedom, the miseries of political slavery, destroying the noblest fabric of free government that human wisdom ever erected, would incur a fearful weight of responsibility, leaving out of the account the gloomy possibility of civil and servile wars, with their manifold and varied horrors.

Where such momentous interests are at stake, it is manifest that they are not to be touched with a rash hand. The soundest judgment must be exercised, the highest order of statesmanship the country affords will be put in requisition to grapple with these complicated dangers. With these remarks, I proceed to answer your queries.

1. The entire power of legislation over the District of Columbia being ceded to the United States, they have the same power over slavery in the District that the State of Virginia has within her own limits; and no one doubts that the sovereign and independent State of Virginia can abolish slavery within her boundaries whenever she chooses.

Indeed there has long been a large proportion of the most intelligent men both in Virginia and Maryland, who have looked forward to the abolition of slavery in their respective States, not only as perfectly within the power of these States, but as likely to be, at no distant time, achieved. There have been many very decided indications that this hope is well founded.

Slavery ought not to exist in the District. So long as it exists there, it will endanger the existence of the Union by the continual irritation it cannot fail hereafter to occasion. The legislative power being in congress for the District, northern men feel that it is with their consent that slavery is continued there, and this conviction they cannot avoid, except by taking all proper measures for the removal of the evil. All

proper and practicable measures ought therefore to be taken to remove it, not only for the general reasons which it is not necessary to enumerate, but also because the continual, and every year more dangerous altercations, which its presence occasions, will cease when their cause is removed, and never before.

Congress has also the entire legislative power over the territories. Those who look upon slavery as a great moral, social, and political evil, ought not to contribute directly or indirectly to enlarge its limits, increase its miseries, or augment the number of its subjects. It would have been already circumscribed within much narrower limits than it now occupies, but for the malign influence exerted by one man, the Honorable Henry Clay, some eighteen or nineteen years ago.

2. The power to regulate commerce among the several States, is given in the same clause and in the same terms as the power to regulate foreign commerce. The third clause of section eight, article first, provides that " congress shall have power to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes." Under the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations, congress have already prohibited the African slave-trade; and under the power to regulate commerce among the several States, congress may equally prohibit the slave-trade among the several States.

As this trade tends to prolong the existence of slavery in several States where slave labor is comparatively unprofitable, as it tends to augment the number of slaves in the States where their labor is more profitable, as it heightens the evils inseparable from slavery, by suddenly breaking up the ties of acquaintance, connection, and relationship; for these and many other reasons, it ought not to be sanctioned by the general government, but all judicious and practicable measures should be adopted to cause its discontinuance.

3. I am in favor of prompt and efficient measures to secure the discontinuance of the slave-trade between the United States and Texas.

4. Your last question I do not think it necessary to answer in detail. I hold it to be my duty to act in every situation, according to my deliberate judgment of right and wrong. The precise line of conduct which I ought to pursue in any given case, I choose to be left at liberty to determine, with all the light I can derive from observation, reading, discussion, and reflection, previously to the moment of action. This liberty. I shall not surrender, unless on any question, I should be specifically instructed by a majority of my constituents; in which event, I should vote according to their instructions if I could conscientiously do so; otherwise, I should resign.

I have given you frankly my present opinions; I will only add, that

as they have not been hastily adopted, they will not be lightly relinquished.

Respectfully, gentlemen, I have the honor to be

Your friend and fellow-citizen,

ROBERT RANTOUL, JR.

To Messrs. E. Hunt, Wm. B. Dodge, and others, committee, etc.

THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.*

MR. PRESIDENT:- The convention which I now have the honor to address, was called, as I suppose, at my suggestion. The reason why I desired of the district committee of this district that the democratic voters of this district should be called together, and that I might have an opportunity to address them, was one which, I think, will meet the approbation of you all. It was, that since the period when I was first nominated to represent this district in congress, a very material change has taken place in the condition of affairs. One change was this. I have had the honor to be nominated for congress again and again, when I supposed there were very few persons who believed there was any probability of my election. A law has now been passed which makes it certain that some person must be elected to represent this district in congress. It is called the Plurality Law. Therefore, as we now know we are 'not to pass through trials without end, but either at the election on Monday next, or on the succeeding one, some person will be elected, it therefore becomes a different question as to what ought to be done.

There has also been a change with regard to other great questions. The great question of slavery has now assumed a particular shape, concerning which it is now necessary to declare an opinion. So long as that question was floating in uncertainty, so long as it was connected with. subjects which were changing day by day, it might not be desirable that a public man should state his opinions. But at last this question has assumed a definite shape. It has presented a distinct issue, an issue reaching back to fundamental principles. And I did in my conscience suppose, that the democratic voters would desire to hear from me, before they should deposit their votes at the election of Monday next.

*Speech delivered before the Grand Mass Convention, holden at Lynn, Thursday, April 3, 1851.

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