Daily national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1854, 1854-07-26
DAILY NATIONAL ERA.
[coPYRIeHT SECURED BY THE AUTHoR.I
For the National Era.
THE LEGAL TENURE OF SLAVERY.
LETTER XVII.
SLAVERY HAS NOT BEEN LOCALIZED SINCE
1889, OR AT THAT PERIOD.

To the Friends of Amsrican Liberty;
| have shown il mistake not, that up to the
date Of the adoption of the Federal Constitu-
tion (i7S9) there was no iegdlizsd Slavery in
this country, there having been no valid mu-
nicipal law to establish it. The question,
therefore, with which we set ont on our search,
is still before US" Whsn, aohere, how and By
sohom, soas american Slavery iegaliSsda"
Did the Constitution Of 1889 legalize it? Is
the date of its legality to be reckoned from
that period Was that the time, the mode, tho
process Of its Iegalzation2 Docs it stand on
the authority Of the nation, as represented in
the Federal Convention? Does IT reside on
the instrument they elaborated? or in the
State notifications that succeeded it! or in the
Government thus organized
1t would be difficult to prove this, and still
more difficult to make either the North or the
South consent to it, if it were proved
If such were the origin of legalzed Slavery
its legality would extend over the whole ccun-
try, for all the States were alike included, and
no particular discrimination was made be-
tween them. If such were the origin of the
institution tho process of its termination
would be equally simple. The same power
that Created it could destroy it. The end of
my argument would, by that process, be eff
fectusliy reached, but choose to see and rep
resent things as they are. The Constitution Of
1889 did not isgdliSe Slavery. I know Of no
advocates of the system who claim that it did.
They only claim thatit recognised it--that it
guaranteed it, or that compromises was made
In its favor. AT this claim will look in due
season. But it assumes the previous existenC6
of legal'zed Slavery, an assumption which
have already disproved. We must find the L.
galisation Of Slavery somewhere elSe if we find
IL at gil, and it must be Of later date than
1889, when the Anti Slavery State Constitu-
tions were III force.
Some Of the original thirteen States, as well
rs some Of those admitted afterwards, may
have adopted new Constitutions that recognise
Siavery--in some cases forbdding the Legisla-
lures to abolish it, Bat even this does not L.
galizs Slavery. II only assumes its previous
legality, and undertakes to perpetuate what it
supposes to be in existence But / have al
ready shown the fallacy Of it's supposed previ-
GUS legality; and mere assumptions, that turn
out to be faliacious, have no legal force. Not
one Of the existing State Constitutions pretend
or attempt to originate the institution of Sla-
very Not one Of them clearly define (even if
they attempt to defne) aoho may be held as
slaves, and, consequently, not one of them fur
nishes foundation for legalzed Slavery. They
leave the question of its legality if it be ques-
tion) precisely where they found it, They i'm
part to il no additional validity. They neither
make it legal, nor prove it to be SO. No sound
and shrewd lawyer, | think, would expect to
maintain, successfully, before Oh impartial and
learned court, the existence of legalized Slave
ny in any of the Southern States, if be should
first concede it's illegality up to the date Of the
State Constitutions now existing. And this
must be conceded, as has already been shown.
When Southern Judges and Senators find
themselves hard pressed las will be seen soon)
to mako out the legal foundation of slavehold-
ing, they are never known to resort to the
State Constitutions for its warranty. To do
this would be giving it an origin too modern
to comport with its claims to veneration. 1t
would be placing it on too vague and uncer-
tain . basis. 1t would unsettle all claims to
slave property prior to the date of tie new
Constitution and in States wherein no pro-sla-
very Constitutions have been formed. At the
same time, the fact Of forming such new Con-
stitutionsl betrays the Consciousness Of defect
in the legal tenure of previously existing Sla-
very.
l think | have now proved, so far as any
negative proposition of the kind can or need be
proved, that Slavery does not at the present
time, exist in the American slave States, by
any local or municipal law No enactments
creating the relation, or defining either its con-
ditions or its subjects, have been found No
chronological table reveals to us their dates.
No archives contain the original documents
that. embody them. No history tells as the
names of the statesmen who signed the enact
ments. No statute book gives US the titles, the
sections, or the provisions Of the acts. Not
the brief period of our recent history, as a
W. vnx NH koxa l.nxu Il -,
whom, the Virginia, the Plymouth, and other
Colonial Governments were organized We
know when, where how, and by whom, the
Continental association against British
aggression and the slave trade was adopted and
signed. We know the date, the specifications,
and the signers Of the Declaration OF Indcpend-
ence, of the articles of Confederation, of the
Federal Consultation, Of the Constitutions Of
the several States, Of the treaties and principal
statutory enactments succeeding and growing
out of them. But "the pttulidr institution Of
American Slavery is in nothing more "pecu-
Iiarn than in this-that its claims are without
either document or dats, without paternity or
parchment No man cen tell wben it became
an Institution or how or By whom it was
institmtd-unless We 20 back again to John
Hawkins, the robber and murderer Dor to
the Dutch captain who knows his name p that
first landed a cargo Of stolen Africans on the
banks Of James river. No name OF native
Amerieaa can be pointed out as having assisted
at the enactment of the "local municipal law
that legalzed American Slavery 1t was
neither Bradford nor Carver--nor Smith nor
Oglcthorpe--nor Baltimore nor Penn-nor
Franklin nor Randolph-nor Washington nor
JeHerson--nor Madison nor Jay--nor Mar
shall nor Wirt--nor Clay nor Calhoun. The
Ionaltr &c tbo tcoal - icc,s,at;nr .o,,aiIx
oludes pursuit And yet all the jurists assure
Of municipal law, local law, positive law
The Slave Power, peyertheless in the persons
Of its petty oligarchy Of 10000 Shareholders,
on the assumed legelization Of American Sla-
very, aspires to expound tho Constitution, to
diotato tho M tiapal rol;cv and control twcn