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Page 20
But if a republican form of government is that in which all the men have
a share in the public power, the slave-holding States will not alone
retire from the Union. The constitutions of some of the other States do
not sanction universal suffrage, or universal eligibility. They require
citizenship, and age, and a certain amount of property, to give a title
to vote or to be voted for; and they who have not those qualifications
are just as much disfranchised, with regard to the government and its
power, as if they were slaves. They have civil rights indeed (and
so have slaves in a less degree; ) but they have no share in the
government. Their province is to obey the laws, not to assist in making
them. All such States must therefore be forisfamiliated with Virginia
and the rest, or change their system. For the Constitution being
absolutely silent on those subjects, will afford them no protection. The
Union might thus be reduced from an Union to an unit. Who does not see
that such conclusions flow from false notions--that the true theory of a
republican government is mistaken--and that in such a government rights,
political and civil, may be qualified by the fundamental law, upon such
inducements as the freemen of the country deem sufficient? That civil
rights may be qualified as well as political, is proved by a
thousand examples. Minors, resident aliens, who are in a course of
naturalization--the other sex, whether maids, or wives, or widows,
furnish sufficient practical proofs of this.
* * * * *
We are next invited to study that clause of the Constitution which
relates to the migration or importation, before the year 1808, of such
persons as any of the States then existing should think proper to admit.
It runs thus: "The migration or importation of such persons as any
of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be
prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred
and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation not
exceeding ten dollars for each person."
It is said that this clause empowers Congress, after the year 1808,
to prohibit the passage of slaves from State to State, and the word
"migration" is relied upon for that purpose.
* * * * *
Whatever may be the latitude in which the word "persons" is capable of
being received, it is not denied that the word "importation" indicates
a bringing in from a jurisdiction foreign to the United States. The two
termini of the importation, here spoken of, are a foreign country and
the American Union--the first the _terminus a quo_, the second the
_terminus ad quem_. The word migration stands in simple connexion with
it, and of course is left to the full influence of that connection.
The natural conclusion is, that the same termini belong to each, or, in
other words, that if the importation must be abroad, so also must be
the migration--no other termini being assigned to the one which are not
manifestly characteristic of the other. This conclusion is so obvious,
that to repel it, the word migration requires, as an appendage,
explanatory phraseology, giving to it a different beginning from that
of importation. To justify the conclusion that it was intended to mean a
removal from State to State, each within the sphere of the constitution
in which it is used, the addition of the words from one to another State
in this Union, were indispensable. By the omission of these words, the
word "migration" is compelled to take every sense of which it is fairly
susceptible from its immediate neighbor, "importation." In this view
it means a coming, as "importation" means a bringing, from a foreign
jurisdiction into the United States. That it is susceptible of this
meaning, nobody doubts. I go further. It can have no other meaning in
the place in which it is found. It is found in the Constitution of this
Union--which, when it speaks of migration as of a general concern, must
be supposed to have in view a migration into the domain which itself
embraces as a general government.
Migration, then, even if it comprehends slaves, does not mean the
removal of them from State to State, but means the coming of slaves
from places beyond their limits and their power. And if this be so, the
gentlemen gain nothing for their argument by showing that slaves were
the objects of this term.
An honorable gentleman from Rhode Island, whose speech was distinguished
for its ability, and for an admirable force of reasoning, as well to
as by the moderation and mildness of its spirit, informed us, with less
discretion than in general he exhibited, that the word "migration" was
introduced into this clause at the instance of some of the Southern
States, who wished by its instrumentality to guard against a prohibition
by Congress of the passage into those States of slaves from other
States. He has given us no authority for this supposition, and it is,
therefore, a gratuitous one. How improbable it is, a moment's reflection
will convince him. The African slave trade being open during the whole
of the time to which the entire clause in question referred, such a
purpose could scarcely be entertained; but if it had been entertained,
and there was believed to be a necessity for securing it, by a
restriction upon the power of Congress to interfere with it, is it
possible that they who deemed it important, would have contented
themselves with a vague restraint, which was calculated to operate
in almost any other manner than that which they desired? If fear and
jealousy, such as the honorable gentleman has described, had dictated
this provision, a better term than that of "migration," simple and
unqualified, and joined, too, with the word "importation," would have
been found to tranquilize those fears and satisfy that jealousy. Fear
and jealousy are watchful, and are rarely seen to accept a security
short of their object, and less rarely to shape that security, of their
own accord, in such a way as to make it no security at all. They always
seek an explicit guaranty; and that this is not such a guaranty this
debate has proved, if it has proved nothing else.
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