Page:On the motion of Sir George Strickland; for the abolition of the negro apprenticeship.djvu/15

7, that these are questions entirely distinct; and if a case of hardship can be made out affecting the bulk of the black population, then I think their wrongs call in the first instance for redress; and that although the planter might, in such case, have a claim on the government for compensation; and although 1 am well aware that in practice his postponing that claim till his hold on the services of the negro had been absolutely withdrawn, would in practice deprive him of the hope of obtaining for it a fair consideration, yet still, because the theory of justice requires it, I am content to depend simply upon this issue, the condition of the negro population. And if 1 go first in time to that branch of the argument which I have placed last in importance, it is only that I may disembarrass my mind of the pecuniary question, before I proceed to argue what is most weighty and essential.

I maintain then, Sir, that there is a compact in this case. There has been much special pleading upon the term. And, indeed, it is in strictness difficult to say what compact there can be between a supreme legislature, and subject bodies or individuals; because a compact by its definition implies that two parties are agreeing to do something which they had the power not to do; while, on the other hand, the idea of a supreme legislature implies, that it has, in the last resort, an absolute control over all that belongs to the governed, and, consequently, they cannot give to it what it already possesses. But in