Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/495

 men, he had not the vanity to suppose that any additional views which he could offer, or any new dress in which he could clothe those already advanced, would have the happy tendency of inducing any gentleman to change his vote. But, if he stood single on the question, and there was no man to help him, yet, while the laws of the land and the rules of the house guaranteed to him the privilege of speech, he would redeem his conscience from the imputation of having silently witnessed a violation of the constitution of his country, and an infringement on the liberties of the people who had intrusted to his feeble abilities the advocation of their rights. He desired, at this early stage of his remarks, in the name of the citizens of Missouri territory, whose rights on other subjects had been too long neglected and shamefully disregarded, to enter his solemn protest against the introduction, under the insidious form of amendment, of any principle in this bill, the obvious tendency of which would be to sow the seeds of discord in, and perhaps eventually endanger the Union.

Mr. S. entertained the opinion that, under the constitution, congress had not the power to impose this, or any other restriction, or to require of the people of Missouri their assent to this condition, as a pre-requisite to their admission into the Union. He contended this from the language of the constitution itself, from the practice in the admission of new states under that instrument, and from the express terms of the treaty of cession. The short view he intended to take of those points would, he trusted, be satisfactory to all those who were not so anxious to usurp power as to sacrifice to its attainment the principles of our government, or who were not desirous of prostrating the rights and independence of a state to chimerical views of policy or expediency. The authority to admit new states into the Union was granted in the third section of the fourth article of the constitution, which declared that "new states may be admitted by the congress into the Union." The only power given to the congress by this section appeared to him to be that of passing a law for the admission of the new state, leaving it in possession of all the rights, privileges, and immunities enjoyed by the other states; the most valuable and prominent of which was that of forming and modifying their own state constitution, and over which congress had no superintending control, other than that expressly given in the fourth section of the same article, which read, "the United States shall guarantee to every state in this Union a republican form of government." This end accomplished, the guardianship of the United States over the constitutions of the several states was fulfilled; and all restrictions, limitations, and conditions beyond this, was so much power unwarrantably assumed. In illustration of this position, he would read an extract from one of the essays written by the late President Madison, contemporaneously with the constitution of the United States, and from a very celebrated work: "In a confederacy founded on republican principles, and composed of republican members, the superintending government ought clearly to possess authority to defend the system against aristocratic or monarchical innovations. The more intimate the nature of such a union may be, the greater interest have the members in the political institutions of each other, and the greater right to insist that the forms