CONSTITUTIONAL RESTRICTIONS. 525 rest on the exercise of the powers held by the several people of each State since the period of the independent existence of the United States, subject only to the international provisions of the Constitution, and also, though in a different sense of subjection, to that international rule which is law in an imperfect sense only when states are spoken of as its subjects. § 488. According to the view herein before taken of the powers of the national Government over the Territories of the United States, the District of Columbia, &c., Congress, in the exercise of the legislative power of the United States, stands in the same relation, towards persons and things in those several jurisdictions, which the several State Governments occupy in reference to persons and things within the limits of their respective States, and is controlled only by the provisions of the Constitution operating as public or as private law, and, perhaps, also by a "common law," identified with the juridical will of the people of the United States.1 § 489. The question how far any one of the State Governments, or the national Government legislating in and for the Territories, &c., has power to determine the existence of conditions of freedom or its contraries within one of these several jurisdictions, is properly to be made a separate question under the local law of each. There is, however, an inquiry which may. be considered generally with reference to all these Governments, which is this: it being assumed that the legislative power held by any one such Government is limited by constitutional provisions having the effect of private law; or, in other words, by those provisions in the Constitutions which, like the English bills of rights and the colonial charter guarantees, secure rights of one blood. They are your equals in natural endowment of intellect, and they feel galled by their degradation. Our slaves do not vote. We give them no political power. Yours do vote, and being the majority, they are the depositaries of all your political power. If they knew the tremendous secret, that the ballot box is stronger than "an army with banners," and could combine, where would you be? Your society would be reconstructed, your government overthrown, your property divided, not as they have mistakenly attempted to initiate such proceedings by meetings in parks, with arms in their hands, but by the quiet process of the ballot box. You have been making war upon us to our very hearth stones. How would you like for us to send lecturers and agitators North, to teach these people this, to aid in combining, and to lead them?" Compare ante, § 481, note. 1 526 CONSTITUTIONAL RESTRICTIONS. to private persons,' and it being also assumed that like clauses, having like effect, may be found in all these Constitutions, including the Constitution of the United States, whether the Governments organized under such Constitutions are thereby restricted either in establishing, or in abrogating, conditions either of freedom or of its contraries; or in their power to establish, or to abrogate, relations incident to conditions of freedom or of bondage.2 § 490. In this inquiry it is proper first to refer to whatever juridical authority3 may exist on this topic, and afterwards to That is, written guarantees, distinguished from that indefinite restriction which may or may not exist by reason of the fact that the organized Government is not the ultimate possessor of the sovereign powers exercised by it. Ante, § 481. On the principle of the continuation of laws, it has already been insisted that rights and obligations, incident to relations existing under previous laws, would continue after the establishment of the new Governments, until changed by their authorized legislation.. It is needless to refer to judicial action, under both the national and the State Governments, maintaining conditions of freedom and its contraries under preexisting laws. These Constitutions might however contain enacting provisions alterative of pre-existing laws. It will be shown hereinafter that in Massachusetts a declaration in the Constitution of 1780, that the enjoyment of "natural rights" is one of the ends of Government, and attributing to all persons certain rights, as natural, which are inconsistent with a condition of slavery, was taken by the courts to be a legislative abrogation of slavery. See Parsons, C. J., in 4 Mass. R. 123. States, whose Constitutions contain declarations very similar, the same effect has never In other been attributed to them. See H. St. George Tucker, President, in the Court of Ap peals of Va., in Betty et al. v. Horton, (1833,) 5 Leigh's R. 622. The question here is of the personal extent of the law attributing rights, as described in the second chapter, or whether it has universal extent or not (ante, §§ 87, 88). In this connection it is a question of internal law, though it is similar to that distinction of laws of universal extent which arises in applying the rule of comity in private international law. But such constitutional provisions as guarantee individual rights as existing rights, without attributing them to all persons, more than is done in the clause "no man shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law," have never been held to operate as a legislative abrogation of slavery or institution of freedom. 'This juridical authority may be distinguished into two portions; 1, judicial decisions of particular cases, in the determination of which the topic is supposed to be involved: 2, juristical opinion; and in this may be included legislative practice, as being an assertion of public law by persons who, from their position, must be supposed to be conversant with the subject. And it may here be observed, that a rule or principle of law is never established by judicial action alone. This proposition may not be readily accepted, but it nevertheless appears, from the nature of the judicial function, that a decision by a judicial tribunal binds private persons only as to the rights and obligations involved in the particular case. In every science rules are derived by induction, and to this, there must be a collation and comparison of a number of otherwise unconnected instances or cases, corresponding to experiments in physics. In jurisprudence, general rules are thus obtained by juristical action. takes place principally in the reported judicial opinions, and hence, in these countries In England and America this juristical deduction it is very common to speak of a rule as depending on some decision of a case, in which this juristical action has been exhibited. In continental Europe the judges confine themselves more to a simple decision of the case before them. But the juristical de AS TO STATUS OF WHITE PERSONS. 527 compare the principle, declared by any such authority, with the general principles of jurisprudence and those doctrines of public law which are received as fundamental in this country; taking them in connection with, or as they are indicated in, the history of free condition and its contraries, as it has herein before been exhibited. § 491. If the conditions of freedom and bondage are properly described as contraries, the legislative establishment of the one is also the abrogation of the other. There is probably no judicial opinion on the question of the power of the ordinary legislature, under these Constitutions, to make free white persons slaves; either chattel slaves or legal persons held in involuntary servitude for life. It seems to be generally supposed that no instances have occurred of such sons being reduced to such slavery under legislative enactment. per But from the summary of State legislation, to be hereinafter given,' it will appear that under the statute law of some of the States, negroes, mulattoes and, generally, persons not of European or Caucasian race, who before enjoyed personal liberty, might be reduced to slavery. And it would appear that such laws have received judicial sanction; no question, it is believed, having been made of the power of the legislature in respect to such persons.2 § 492. No judicial opinion earlier than that of the Supreme duction is completed by private writers. Hence the treatises have with them greater authority than the so-called "elementary works" have with us. Compare the language of Ram, on Legal Judgment, p. 2, with that of Falck, Juristiche Ency. § 10, ante, p. 25, n. 2, p. 26, n. 2. See also, on this subject, Bacon's Aphorisms, 21-31, in Advancement of Learn. B. 8, c. 3. Senator Platt (afterwards Judge of the Supreme Court) in Yates v. Lansing, 9 Johnson, 414, "The decisions of Courts are not the law, they are only evidence of the law. And this evidence is stronger or weaker according to the number and uniformity of adjudications, the union or dissension of the Judges, the solidity of the reasons on which the decisions are founded, and the perspicuity and precision with which those reasons are expressed. The weight and authority of judicial decisions depend also on the character and temper of the times in which they are pronounced. An adjudication at a moment when turbulent passions or revolutionary frenzies prevail deserves much less respect than if it were made at a season propitious to impartial inquiry and calm deliberation." And see Stroud's Sketch, 2d ed. p. 24-30. 2 Whether under these statutes white persons have not sometimes been reduced to slavery may depend on the answer to the question, how is a negro, mulatto, &c., to be distinguished from a person of white, or European or Caucasian race? 34 528 SLAVERY IN THE TERRITORIES. Court of the United States, in Dred Scott v. Sandford, 19 Howard, 394, appears to be on record to the effect that, if the political power and jurisdiction over the Territories, &c., is vested in the national Government,' Congress has not the power to determine whether slavery shall or shall not exist therein, or whether a presently legal right of ownership, in a domiciled inhabitant, in respect to a negro slave shall or shall not continue; nor any which declares that such power is one not within the ordinary scope of powers belonging to such limited Governments as have existed in and for the United and several States. Nor is there any other holding that, if by the Constitution of a State, or by that of the United States operating with like effect, the right of private property or to private property is guaranteed by a declaration that no man shall be deprived of his property without due process of law, the right of a person, being a resident or domiciled inhabitant or citizen of one of these jurisdictions, in respect to a negro lawfully held by him, before and presently, as a slave or in involuntary servitude, is a right of property or to property, which under this constitutional guarantee cannot be affected by the legislative power held by the State Government, in and for a State, or by that held by Congress in and for a Territory, &c., as the case may be. § 493. In this case, however, it was held by the majority of the court that Congress has no power to abolish or prohibit slavery in the Territories of the United States. And in the Opinion of the Court, delivered by Chief Justice Taney, it is held that the provisions in the Constitution, which have already 1 Whether the supreme governmental power or sovereignty, or any portion of it, is severally or separately vested in the inhabitants of such Territory, so that they are in its exercise independent of the national power as are the people of a State in their several sovereignty, is an entirely different question, one of public law, and to be considered in another place. Compare ante, §§ 348, 397. 2 Mr. Justice Catron, 19 Howard, 519, reciting the words of the act of Congress of 1820, commonly called the Missouri Compromise, "That in all that territory, ceded by France to the United States, which lies north of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes north latitude, slavery and involuntary servitude shall be, and are hereby, for ever prohibited;" says, “The first question presented on this act is whether Congress had power to make such a compromise. For if power was wanting, then no freedom could be acquired by the defendant under the act." In denying the power of Congress, concurred Chief Justice Taney, Justices Wayne, Grier, Daniel, Campbell and Catron. Justices McLean and Curtis dissenting, and Mr. Justice Nelson thinking the decision of the question not necessary for the determination of the case. DRED SCOTT v. SANDFORD. 529 been referred to as having the effect of private law throughout the entire dominion of the United States, especially the clause guaranteeing to the private citizen his possession of property, "No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law," apply to slaves as property, or that, in reference to such guarantee they are to be considered property, in the same degree as domestic animals and inanimate chattels. The passage in which this is enunciated, is on page 451 of the report, and in continuation of that part of the Opinion which has herein already been cited in a note to pages 463, 464 : "And if Congress itself cannot do this-if it is beyond the powers conferred on the Federal Government-it will be admitted, we presume, that it could not authorize a Territorial Government to exercise them. It could confer no power on any local Government, established by its authority, to violate the provisions of the Constitution. "It seems, however, to be supposed, that there is a difference between property in a slave and other property, and that different rules may be applied to it in expounding the Constitution of the United States. And the laws and usages of nations, and the writings of eminent jurists upon the relation of master and slave and their mutual rights and duties, and the powers which Governments may exercise over it, have been dwelt upon in the argument. "But in considering the question before us, it must be borne in mind that there is no law of nations standing between the people of the United States and their Government, and interfering with their relation to each other. The powers of the Government, and the rights of the citizen under it, are positive and practical regulations plainly written down. The people of the United States have delegated to it certain enumerated powers, and forbidden it to exercise others. It has no power over the person or property of a citizen but what the citizens of the United States have granted. And no laws or usages of other nations, or reasoning of statesmen or jurists upon the relations of master and slave, can enlarge the powers of the Government, or take from the citizens the rights they have re |