The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1850-08-22

Certain Senators and Representatives In Con-
gress from the savehoding States have been
much shocked and scandalized by the annuncia-
tion of higher law than the Constitution. They
unhesitatingly charge all who profess to believe
in the existence Of that higher law, with the de-
liberate purpose of perjury and treason, and I'M
sparingly denounce them as unprincipled fanatics
We have seen nothing to warrant this grave
charge; no Northern man in the public councils,
to our knowledge, has declared, or left it to be
inferred, that he would violate his official oath in
obedience to any higher law. That the Senator
from New York, who has incurred 80 much de-
nuncistion by his speech on the 18th of March,
meant to be thus understood, we never imagined
until we read or heard the srrn,acd -vsiun
placed upon his language by his enemies
But there is party or section Of this country
which holds the Constitution and laws of the
United States subordinate to a higher law. In
South Carolina as we'll as in several other
Southern States, one of the plainest and most
important provisions of the Constitution has
been nulliied by legislative enactments, by men
who have taken solemn oath to support that
instrument We allude to the second section Of
the fourth article of the Constitution, which de-
clares that "the citizens of each State shall be
entitled to all privileges and immunities of cit-
zens in the several States" In direct violation
of this express guaranty Of the Constitution, the
Legislatures of most Of the slaveholding States
have enacted laws prohibiting on pain Of perpet
ual slavery, or other severe penalties, the free
oolored people Of other States coming into their
borders Here then, are barbarism and reck
lessness of oaths combined, not to characterize
the transaction in harsher terms. No man pos
sessing particle of truth or candor can pre-
tend that South Carolina has any right to deter
mine the question of citizenship for Massaohu-
sets or New York Those States, by their fun
damental laws, treat colored men as freemen-as
citizens so does every free State, and most Of the
slave States. To prohibit these people, there
fore, the enjoyment of any privilege in the sever
al States, which the white citizens Of those States
exercise, is to commit gross palpable violation
of the Constitution Of the United States, and, in
obedience to the higher law Of what they call
necessity, to disregard the oaths which they
had taken to support the Constitution. The
members Of every State Legislature, it is to be
borne in mind, no less than the members of Con-
gress, take an oath to support the Constitution Of
the United States. So in like manner, do the
Judges of the State courts who enforce these ini-
ouitous violations of the supreme law Of the land
Here, then, is lesson of morality which the
chivalry of the South has given to the pur-
tansm of the North which cannot fail to excite
disgust and adherence in every honorable mind
We are not only willing, but anxious to believe,
that the great majority Of those who were the
massive instruments of few disbolcal leaders
in the enactment of these infamous utilities, did
80 under the influence Of blind prejudice and
ignorance, which shielded them from meditated
violation of the Constitution. But that the more
enlightened among them, the lawyers and politi-
clans we'll read in the Constitution, can plead
such an excuse, is incredible. An eminent jurist
of South Carolins, the late Judge johnson, de-
clared that the State laws to which we have refer
red prohibiting free colored persons from going ut
pleasure from State to State, were 30 palpably
unconstitutional, that the question would not ad-
init of argument. Such must be the unhesitating
judgment of every honest man.
We have remarked, that the Constitutions
of the free States invariably treat coored people
as citizens The denial of the right OF suffrage
to that class of persons, in some Of those States,
cannot be construed into denial Of citizenship,
any more than a similar exclusion which extends
to women and minors can be 80 interpreted. liza
colored man is not citizen because he cannot
vote, neither is a woman. But the laws and Con-
stitutions of all the States treat women as cit-
zens, protect them in the enjoyment Of their lib
erty and property, and extend to them every
privilege and immunity Of citizenship, except the
right of suffrage and of holding office. Indeed,
the very clauses Of the Constitutions OF the free
States which exclude women, minors, and colored
people, from the polls and from office, generally
admit, by the clearest implication, their citizen
ship, because they usually run thus: every
white male citizen shall, &cq' from which II Is
evident that there are colored citizens, as we'll
as female citizens.
But, in regard to Massachusetts, and some
other free States, there is not shadow of ground
for denying citizenship to colored persona, be-
IL all q L. ~ - -