Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1844-04-20

applied to the case of slaves without conflicting
with the laws of God and morality? If not, it is
null and void when so applied. This the Buffalo
resolve asserts. But does it apply to the slave?-
No friend Of the Constitution dare SO apply it, for
the moment he does, as we have seen, it renders
that instrument void. By legal principles we are
forbidden then so to apply consrue it as to rem
der it void. We must regard that old fundamen-
tai rule of construction whether in constitutional
or statutory law, which requires, if it be possible,
that all may stand, rendering no part thereof void
by reason of its repugnance to the law of God or
natural right. 1t is not therefore the fundamental
law of the Republic, but only such constructions
and msappicatons of it as by all legal principles
would render it void, that is denounced by said re-
solves. | am aware that many persons think that
all legislative enactments are laws. Henry Clay
thinks So He says, "whatever the law (statute)
declares to be property is property" And if in
the beginning slavery was tresspass and robbery,
at any rate "two hundred years of Legislation have
sanctioned and sanctifed it," Such is not the
opinion of the abolitionists. An act maIem in Sc
can never be sanctifed by human legislation. 1t
was thought for a long while by English lawyers
that slavery was legal in England. But it was
more than sixty years since Lord Mansfield de-
cIared all such cnactments and constructions of
law as make one man the property of another,
null and void. The good people of Massachusetts
supposed slavery existed legally in that common
wealth for years after their political organization.
But when the matter was examined it was fonnd
that every STAKEHOLDER had been respasser,
without law human or divine, to sanction and sane
tify his crime. Many persons may honestly think
that slavery is a legal institution. We do not
1t cannot exist by the sanction of law anywhere
1t is only by such arbitrary enactments as can new
er be sanctioned by legal authority that slavery
exists. Much less can it exist within the jursdic-
ton or by authority of the American Congress-
There is no grant in the Constitution for that pur-
pose. Every slave in the District of Columbia is
by the laws of the land as much entitled to his
freedom as the President. There is no REQUIRE
ment in the Constitution to return Runaway slaves
to their bondage. There is nothing contained in
the section above quoted, that could be left out if
slavery did not exist in the land. Nothing is there
contained from which any one can justly infer the
existence of slavery. There are persons held to
service labor in all the States, other than slaves,
and held by different tenures. Such persons only
are to be given up as owe service, and are to be
given on application by such only to whom service
is due. This last clause forbids its application to
slaves. More than this another clause of the
same Constitution, says, "No person shall be de-
prved of liberty without due process of law."-
How can both these sections stand if the first
means that every sixth man, woman and child may
be deprived of liberty and dragged from one end
of the Union to the other without any process
whatever? We must avoid such contradiction
and preserve the Constitution, which can only be
done on the principles of the Baffalo resolves.
Stowe, April, 1914. B. H. F.