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Page 10
It is further objected, that the article of the act of admission into
the Union, by which slavery should be excluded from Missouri, would
be nugatory, as the new State in virtue of its sovereignty would be at
liberty to revoke its consent, and annul the article by which slavery is
excluded.
Such revocation would be contrary to the obligations of good faith,
which enjoins the observance of our engagements; it would be repugnant
to the principles on which government itself is founded; sovereignty in
every lawful government is a limited power, and can do only what it
is lawful to do. Sovereigns, like individuals, are bound by their
engagements, and have no moral power to break them. Treaties between
nations repose on this principle. If the new State can revoke and annul
an article concluded between itself and the United States, by which
slavery is excluded from it, it may revoke and annul any other article
of the compact; it may, for example, annul the article respecting public
lands, and in virtue of its sovereignty, assume the right to tax and to
sell the lands of the United States. There is yet a more satisfactory
answer to this objection. The judicial power of the United States is
co-extensive with their legislative power, and every question arising
under the Constitution or laws of the United States, is recognizable by
the judiciary thereof. Should the new State rescind any of the articles
of compact contained in the act of admission into the Union, that, for
example, by which slavery is excluded, and should pass a law authorizing
slavery, the judiciary of the United States on proper application, would
immediately deliver from bondage, any person retained as a slave in said
State. And, in like manner, in all instances affecting individuals,
the judiciary might be employed to defeat every attempt to violate the
Constitution and laws of the United States.
If Congress possess the power to exclude slavery from Missouri, it still
remains to be shown that they ought to do so. The examination of this
branch of the subject, for obvious reasons, is attended with peculiar
difficulty, and cannot be made without passing over arguments which, to
some of us, might appear to be decisive, but the use of which, in this
place, would call up feelings, the influence of which would disturb, if
not defeat, the impartial consideration of the subject.
Slavery, unhappily, exists within the United States. Enlightened men, in
the States where it is permitted, and everywhere out of them, regret its
existence among us, and seek for the means of limiting and of mitigating
it. The first introduction of slaves is not imputable to the present
generation, nor even to their ancestors. Before the year 1642, the trade
and ports of the colonies were open to foreigners equally as those of
the mother country; and as early as 1620, a few years only after the
planting of the colony of Virginia, and the same year in which the first
settlement was made in the old colony of Plymouth, a cargo of negroes
was brought into and sold as slaves in Virginia by a foreign ship. From
this beginning, the importation of slaves was continued for nearly
two centuries. To her honor, Virginia, while a colony, opposed the
importation of slaves, and was the first State to prohibit the same, by
a law passed for this purpose in 1778, thirty years before the general
prohibition enacted by Congress in 1808. The laws and customs of the
States in which slavery has existed for so long a period, must have had
their influence on the opinions and habits of the citizens, which ought
not to be disregarded on the present occasion.
* * * * *
When the general convention that formed the Constitution took this
subject into their consideration, the whole question was once more
examined; and while it was agreed that all contributions to the common
treasury should be made according to the ability of the several States
to furnish the same, the old difficulty recurred in agreeing upon a
rule whereby such ability should be ascertained, there being no simple
standard by which the ability of individuals to pay taxes can be
ascertained. A diversity in the selection of taxes has been deemed
requisite to their equalization. Between communities this difficulty is
less considerable, and although the rule of relative numbers would not
accurately measure the relative wealth of nations, in States in the
circumstances of the United States, whose institutions, laws, and
employments are so much alike, the rule of numbers is probably as near
equal as any other simple and practical rule can be expected to be
(though between the old and new States its equity is defective),--these
considerations, added to the approbation which had already been given to
the rule, by a majority of the States, induced the convention to agree
that direct taxes should be apportioned among the States, according to
the whole number of free persons, and three-fifths of the slaves which
they might respectively contain.
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