Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/589

 legislation, as well over the territory north of the Ohio as over other territory, both within and without the original Union, ceded to the general government, and, at various times, a more enlarged power has been exercised over the territories — meaning thereby the different territorial governments — than is conveyed by the limited grant referred to. How far an existing necessity may have operated in producing this legislation, and thus extending, by rather a violent implication, powers not directly given, I know not. But certain it is that the principle of interference should not be carried beyond the necessary implication which produces it. It should be limited to the creation of proper governments for new countries, acquired or settled, and to the necessary provision for their eventual admission into the Union; leaving, in the meantime, the people inhabiting them, to regulate their internal concerns in their own way. They are just as capable of doing so as the people of the states; and they can do so, at any rate as soon as their political independence is recognized by admission into the Union. During this temporary condition, it is hardly expedient to call into exercise a doubtful and invidious authority, which questions the intelligence of a respectable portion of our citizens, and whose limitation, whatever it may be, will be rapidly approaching its termination — an authority which would give to congress despotic power, uncontrolled by the constitution, over most important sections of our common country. For, if the relation of master and servant may be regulated or annihilated by its legislation, so may the regulation of husband and wife, of parent and child, and of any other condition which our institutions and the habits of our society recognize. What would be thought if congress should undertake to prescribe the terms of marriage in New York, or to regulate the authority of parents over their children in Pennsylvania? It would be vain to seek an argument justifying the interference of the national legislature in the cases referred to in the original states of the Union. I speak here of the inherent power of congress, and do not touch the question of such contracts as may be formed with new states when admitted into the confederacy.

Of all the questions that can agitate us, those which are merely sectional in their character are the most dangerous, and the most to be deprecated. The warning voice of him who from his character and services and virtue had the best right to warn us, proclaimed to his countrymen, in his farewell address, that monument of wisdom for him, as I hope it will be of safety for them, how much we had to apprehend from measures peculiarly affecting geographical sections of our country. The grave circumstances in which we are now placed make these words words of safety; for I am satisfied, from all I have seen and heard here, that a successful attempt to engraft the principles of the Wilmot proviso upon the legislation of this government, and to apply them to new territory, should new territory be acquired, would seriously affect our tranquility. I do not suffer myself to foresee or to foretell the consequences that would ensue; for I trust and believe there is good sense and good feeling enough in the country to avoid them, by avoiding all occasions which might lead to them.

Briefly, then, I am opposed to the exercise of any jurisdiction by congress