Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1855-12-13
TIRE INTERSTATE SLAVE TRADE.

10 US 80 promising OF success as the Introduction
Of the Slave traffic between the States, or as it
has latterly been denominated, the Interstate
Slave Trade
But is this Constitutional! donbtingly
ask the still but-half converted masses of the
North, -" Does the Constitution confer on Con-
grsss the power to do this!'' We maintain the
affirmative. We unhesitatingly believe the Con-
stitution does confer on Congress the power, and
the ample power, to abolish, at once and forever,
this abhorrent traffic in human flesh among the
States but we will not ask your assent to our
proposition, without a reason. So, then, my
doubling friends, let us reason together and in
the first place, lot US turn to the Constitution
and see what it says having an application to the
matter in question
Among the different powers which the Consti.
tuition declares " Congress shall have" is the
following
=" TO regulate commerce ,uih foreign nations,
sad among the several States, and nth the In
dian tribes"
Here we find the power of regulating com,
mer &c among the States, rs clearly and distinct
ly defined as language could be made to do it;
and the next question is, whether the power OF
regulating involves also the power of prohibit.
ingf Again let US see Here it is seen that
che power of regulating commerce among the
States is placed precisely in the same category
as the power of regulating commerce with for.
sign nations and the Indian tribes, and that,
consequently, this power is the same-just as
ample, and just as unqualified, in the one OF these
cases as the two other. But with the two lat
tsr, has not the power of prohibiting, derived
ouly from that same expression to regnldte, been
universally Enthusiastically exercised, un
questioned, by Congress, and the acts Of that
body so exercising it, declared to be constitu
tional by the decision of the Supreme Court
Did not Congress pass the Embargo act previous
70 the war of 1912, totally interdicting all com
meree with u foreign nation, and was not that
act declared constitutional by the Supreme
Court Of the United States Certainly. Every
well-informed man knows this. And did not
Congress also interdict the States from traf6cing
with the Indian tribes! And has not the Su-
preme Court passed upon that act likewise, and
incidentally, if not directly, confirmed its con-
stitutionaiity by their decisions' Most surely.
All these questions of prohibiting such commerce
with foreign nations and the Indian tribes as
was deemed prejudicial to " the general wei
fare" have been settled long ago, and the pow
sr of Congress SO to prohibit as firmly established
as any question that eyer arose nnder the Con
stitution,
This point, tten, being settled beyond doubt
or dispute, the only possible question in thu
premises remaining to be settled, is, whether the
selling and buying of slaves from enc State to
another, is commerce among the several States
If the slaves are chattel property, as the whole
South unitedly claim, and their several STATE
laws as unitedly declare, what else but com
meree is the open and well known traffic in then
by the several States of the South, and especi
ally at the enormous extent now CARED or
among them Thirty Or forty years ago, it il
true, this traffic was so limited that it coult
hardly be said, perhaps, to have attained, in til,
public aind, to the dignity of being called ,
commerce. During the four years followin,
1890, ia which We resided in Virginia, an,
closely watched the workings of the inferna
system, comparatively but few cases occurred il
that and the adjoining Slave State where slave
were sold to go to the States further South, an
those generally on account of some gross misde
meanor. But from that period the state {
things rapidly altered in Virginia and all tn
Northern Slaveholding States. The price {
cotton took an unexpected and permanent ris
and with it came an unexpected and constant
increasing demand for slaves, with fast adval
cling prices, from aii the cotton growing State
And Virginia, with the whole belt of Nsrther
Slave States, which were before finding Slave,
% improbable as to be voluntarily agitating Il
question of emancipation US matter of STA
policy as we'll as humanity, suddenly, with
few honorable exceptions, ceased talking abo
doing away Slavery, and, with one consent, so'
entered into the execrable traffic of not on
selling Slaves, however well behaved, but pu
posely raising them to sell for the profit, wi
% much cool calculation and with az little CO,
Function rs we of the North do our cattle Al
.herses. And so rapidly did that traffic incrca,
that 'Thonas Jefferson Randolph, an inbr
,snti-slavegg nan, like his ilustrious grand
cher, as We knew from personal acquaintan
with them both. publicly declared in his me
r0rabls speech in thsV Virginia Legislature of Oh
year, 90 the subject, that " THE STATE HAD I
CONE ONE VAST ,MEsAcERrE. WHERE MEN WE
REARED FoR THE MARKET, LIKE OXEN FOR T
SHAMELESS" And i'm this bold statement
WAS confirmed by Mr.. Mercer, although
TRAFFIC, at that time, was believed by them !
10 have reached more than two million of d
lars in the amount of the sales, But as mt
ast the traGe was thef denounced by these q
other patriots Of that day, it was only the
Einning of this wo-fraught crime Another
years more than auadrupledtise traffic. Ant
it has gone. on, increasing in the same feal
ratio. till new. % not long since estimated,
we presume correctly by the Times, an
Virginia paper, that trafc has reached the
palling amount of twenty million of dollars
Annum in that State alone!
Now III Q tsaaied trade of such an extent
not ,comnerce, what, in the name of conn
sense, iscommerce' 1t is commerce by ey
rational construction. We.ef the North kl
tito be such, and the South themselves hest
net to admit and call it SO, and all ooneede
IL has become sne,Of the greatest branches
commerce now carried on in the whole I'm
States.
Such. then, is the argument for showing