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Page 67
The integrity of our political system depends upon harmony in the
operations of the Nation and of the States. While the nation within its
wide orbit is supreme, the States move with equal supremacy in their
own. But, from the necessity of the case, the supremacy of each in
its proper place excludes the other. The Nation cannot exercise rights
reserved to the States, nor can the States interfere with the powers
of the nation. Any such action on either side is a usurpation. These
principles were distinctly declared by Mr. Jefferson in 1798, in words
often adopted since, and which must find acceptance from all parties.
* * * * *
I have already amply shown to-day that Slavery is in no respect
national--that it is not within the sphere of national activity,--that
it has no "positive" support in the Constitution,--and that any
interpretation inconsistent with this principle would be abhorrent to
the sentiments of its founders. Slavery is a local institution, peculiar
to the States, and under the guardianship of State rights. It
is impossible, without violence to the spirit and letter of the
Constitution, to claim for Congress any power to legislate either for
its abolition in the States or its support anywhere. Non-Intervention
is the rule prescribed to the nation. Regarding the question in its more
general aspects only, and putting aside, for the moment, the perfect
evidence from the records of the convention, it is palpable that there
is no national fountain out of which the existing Slave Act can possibly
spring.
But this Act is not only an unwarrantable assumption of power by the
nation, it is also an infraction of rights reserved to the States.
Everywhere within their borders the States are peculiar guardians of
personal liberty. By jury and habeas corpus to save the citizen harmless
against all assault is among their duties and rights. To his State the
citizen, when oppressed, may appeal; nor should he find that appeal
denied. But this Act despoils him of rights, and despoils his State
of all power to protect him. It subjects him to the wretched chance of
false oaths, forged papers, and facile commissioners, and takes from
him every safeguard. Now, if the slaveholder has a right to be secure
at home in the enjoyment of Slavery, so also has the freeman of the
North--and every person there is presumed to be a free man--an equal
right to be secure at home in the enjoyment of freedom. The same
principle of State rights by which Slavery is protected in the slave
States throws an impenetrable shield over Freedom in the free States.
And here, let me say, is the only security for Slavery in the slave
States, as for Freedom in the free States. In the present fatal
overthrow of State rights you teach a lesson which may return to plague
the teacher. Compelling the National Government to stretch its Briarean
arms into the free States for the sake of Slavery, you show openly how
it may stretch these same hundred giant arms into the slave States for
the sake of Freedom. This lesson was not taught by our fathers.
Here I end this branch of the question. The true principles of our
political system, the history of the National Convention, the natural
interpretation of the Constitution, all teach that this Act is a
usurpation by Congress of powers that do not belong to it, and an
infraction of rights secured to the States. It is a sword, whose handle
is at the National Capital, and whose point is everywhere in the States.
A weapon so terrible to personal liberty the nation has no power to
grasp.
(2). And now of the denial of Trial by Jury.
Admitting, for the moment, that Congress is intrusted with power over
this subject, which truth disowns, still the Act is again radically
unconstitutional from its denial of Trial by Jury in a question of
personal liberty and a suit of common law. Since on the one side there
is a claim of property, and on the other of liberty, both property
and liberty are involved in the issue. To this claim on either side is
attached Trial by Jury.
To me, Sir, regarding this matter in the light of the Common Law and
in the blaze of free institutions, it has always seemed impossible to
arrive at any other conclusion. If the language of the Constitution were
open to doubt, which it is not, still all the presumptions of law,
all the leanings to Freedom, all the suggestions of justice, plead
angel-tongued for this right. Nobody doubts that Congress, if it
legislates on this matter, may allow a Trial by Jury. But if it may, so
overwhelming is the claim of justice, it MUST. Beyond this, however, the
question is determined by the precise letter of the Constitution.
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