Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v4.djvu/612

596 not only be an unnecessary and inconvenient restraint upon the power of the legislature, but might prevent, in many instances, the accomplishment of objects of the greatest importance—objects of the highest interest and utility to the community. The equivalent prescribed and guarantied by the Constitution is a sure and sufficient security against any abuse of the power: and it certainly is not unreasonable that private rights should yield, on terms of just compensation, to the paramount rights of the public, so far, and to such extent, as the interest and welfare of the public may require, or as may be necessary to effectuate great and useful public purposes.

Mr. HUGH L. WHITE. When the Constitution was framed, the great and leading interests of the whole country were considered, and, in the spirit of liberality and compromise, were adjusted and settled. They were settled upon principles that ought to remain undisturbed so long as the Constitution lasts, which I hope will be forever; for although liberty may be preferable to the Union, yet I think the Union is indispensable to the security of liberty. At the formation of the Constitution, slavery existed in many of the states; it was one of the prominent interests that was then settled. It, in all its domestic bearings, was left exclusively to the respective states to do with as they might think best, without any interference on the part of the federal government. This, it is admitted by every gentleman who has addressed you, is now the case, in every slave-holding state; therefore it is only urged that Congress has the power to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia. It should never be forgotten that when the Constitution was formed and adopted, what is now the District of Columbia was then comprehended within two of the slaveholding states, Maryland and Virginia.

In my opinion, we should refuse to receive these petitions. It is a mere question of expediency what disposition we shall make of them. All who have yet spoken admit that Congress has no power whatever over slavery in the respective states. It is settled. Whether slavery is right or wrong, we have now no power to consider or discuss. Suppose, then, a petition were presented to abolish slavery in the states; should we receive it? Assuredly we ought not, because it would be asking us to act upon a subject over which we have no power.

Slaves are property in this District. Congress cannot take private property, even for public use, without making just compensation to the owner. No fund is provided by the Constitution to pay for slaves which may be liberated; and the Constitution never gives Congress the power to act upon any subject, without, at the same time, furnishing the means for its accomplishment. To liberate slaves is not taking them for public use. It is declaring that neither individuals nor the public shall use them.

Congress sits here as the legislature of the whole Union, and also as the only legislature for the local concerns of the District of Columbia. These petitions do not ask us to make a general law, operating throughout the whole Union; but a law the operations of which are to be spent entirely upon property within the ten miles square. Now, if we were in form, as well as in substance, a local legislature when acting on this question, which gentlemen say is to affect slavery in the District, and nowhere else, should we be bound to receive these petitions? No more than we are bound to receive petitions from France or Germany. Would gentlemen, if sitting as members of the legislature of Alabama, feel bound to receive petitions from citizens of Maine or Pennsylvania to emancipate slaves within their own state? Assuredly not. If that be so, is it not most