Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/488

 place a vulture preying on your heart — nay, you whet the dagger and place it in the hands of a portion of your population, stimulated to use it by every tie, human and divine. The envious contrast between your happiness and their misery, between your liberty and their slavery, must constantly prompt them to accomplish your destruction. Your enemies will learn the source and the cause of your weakness. As often as external dangers shall threaten, or internal commotions await you, you will then realize, that by your own procurement, you have placed amidst your families, and in the bosom of your country, a population producing at once the greatest cause of individual danger, and of national weakness. With this defect, your government must crumble to pieces, and your people become the scoff of the world.

Sir, we have been told, with apparent confidence, that we have no right to annex conditions to a state, on its admission into the Union; and it has been urged that the proposed amendment, prohibiting the further introduction of slavery, is unconstitutional. This position, asserted with so much confidence, remains unsupported by any argument, or by any authority derived from the constitution itself. The constitution strongly indicates an opposite conclusion, and seems to contemplate a difference between the old and the new states. The practice of the government has sanctioned this difference in many respects.

The third section of the fourth article of the constitution says, "new states may be admitted by the congress into this Union," and it is silent as to the terms and conditions upon which the new states may be so admitted. The fair inference from this is, that the congress which might admit, should prescribe the time and the terms of such admission. The tenth section of the first article of the constitution says, "the migration or importation of such persons as any of the states shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the congress prior to the year 1808." The words "now existing" clearly show the distinction for which we contend. The word slave is no where mentioned in the constitution; but this section has always been considered as applicable to them, and unquestionably reserved the right to prevent their importation into any new state before the year 1808.

Congress, therefore, have power over the subject, probably as a matter of legislation, but more certainly as a right, to prescribe the time and the condition upon which any new state may be admitted into the family of the Union. Sir, the bill now before us proves the correctness of my argument. It is filled with conditions and limitations. The territory is required to take a census, and is to be admitted only on condition that it have 40,000 inhabitants. I have already submitted amendments preventing the state from taxing the lands of the United States, and declaring that all navigable waters shall remain open to the other states, and be exempt from any tolls or duties. And my friend (Mr. Taylor) has also submitted amendments prohibiting the state from taxing soldiers' lands for the period of five years. And to all these amendments we have heard no objection — they have passed unanimously. But now, when an amendment prohibiting the further introduction of slavery is proposed, the whole house is put in agitation, and we are confidently told it is