The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1855-05-24
For the National Era
THE LEGAL TENURE OF SLAVERY.
LETTER Xxx.
LETTER Xxx.

LETTER Xxx.
"BILLS OF ATrAINDER-EX POST. FACro
LAWS-IMPAIRING THE OBLIGATION
OF CONTRACTS"
To the Friends of american Liberty:
have already shown that Slavery is uxcon
stitutional, and ought to be abolished by the
Federal Government, as the only means of Sc
curing the declared objects of the Constitution,
as set forth in the Preamble. l have also
quoted three specific provisions of the Constitu-
ton, which are, severally, equivalent to pro-
hibition of Slavery, viz: the clauses forbidding
the deprivation of "Gberty without due process
of law" securing the privileges of the writ of
habeas corpus" and exemption from "unrea-
sonable searches and seizures"
Each of these inhibitions forbids Slavery,
whether under State or National jurisdiction.
But / shall now adduce others which directly
and explicitly forbid the STATES to maintain
Slavery.
". BILLS OF ATTAINDER.
"No State shall pass any bill Of attain1er,
or er post .facto law, or law impairing the obi
CATION of contracts, or grant any title of nobil-
ity."-Art. l, Sec. 10, Clause /.
Here are several distinct prohibitions We
have now to do with the first, which forbids the
States to pass "any bill of attainder"
And schat IS bill Of attainder? What is its
effect? And why is it prohibited in the Con-
stitution?
An attainder is that which atlantis or cor
rupts the blood-which DISTINGUISHES, disinher-
It's degrades, or works deprivation of civil,
personal or political rghts-especialy which
does this to tie child, on account of the act,
condition, or disability of the parent. Its effect
is to establish or to perpetuate hereditary dstnc
tons, depriving the attainted class or race of
the rights and immunities which would other
wise be accorded to them. 1t Institutes, in
society, an inferior caste, from the injurious
operations of which its victims have no means
of extricating themselves, and above which
they are unable, by any laudable exertions, to
rise. A bill or act of attainder is statute i'm
posing such disabilities and establishing such
distinctions.*
1t was4orbidden in the Constitution, because
it was deemed snti-republican and unjust, and
because its injustice and its manifold mischiefs
in the old world had long been subject of
lamentation and complaint. The feudal sys-
tenn had been a perpetual attainder of the blood
of the vilein or serf, forbidding him or his pos
terity to rise above that condition. DespOtic
Governments had also been in the habit of
passing bills of attainder against the persons
and families of those obnoxious TO them, for
alleged political offences, particularly for the
imputation of treason. The rising civilization
of Western Europe had, already, for the most
part, displaced the attainder of the feudal sys-
tenn, and was urging the alterations since
realized in England, in respect to treason, lin
iting the consequences of attainder to the life
of the person attainted.-Vide Act of "a
William ". 1t was in the same spirit of lib
crafty and progress that the Federal Constitu-
ton prOyided as follows:
"The Congress shall have power to declare
the punishment of treason, but no dHdindcr of
treason shall work corruption Of blood, or for
fixture, except during the life of the person at
tainted. Art III, Sec. 3, Clause /.
With such a restriction upon Congress, even
in respect to the punishment of treason, it
would have been strangely homogeneous to
have left the States at liberty to pass bills of
attainder, without the imputation of any crime
to attaint whole races of men, the masses of
the laboring population, in half of the States.
The spirit, as well as the letter of the Consttu-
ton forbids it.
1t is not to be presumed that the able civil
ians and jurists in the Federal Convention did
not know what they were doing, when they for
babe the States to pass any bills of attainder
nor that they used words so carelessly as to in
clude, in terms, a prohibition of Slavery in the
king any limitations or exceptions that should
have saved the cherished institution" of SER
vile "attainder," if they had intended to screen
it. The common, but unfonnded pretence, that
the shareholders, at that period, we're so jealous
for the security of their institution" (which
had no legal existence! y that they would not
have come into the Union, without compro-
mise" and "guaranty" on the subject, is a
pretence that contrasts ludicrously with the
fact before u.s. that they allowed such a restric.
ton upon Estate Rights" to appear in the Con-
stitutiOn, without the least semblance of any
exception or qualification at all. Were there
any grounds for those pretensions, the Consti.
tuition should have read mo State shall pass
any bill of attainder, except that of the African
race" or "except that of slavesl"
AS the document now stands it does forbid
any attainder of the African race, or of the
descendants of slaves. 1t does forbid that the
State authorities shall hold the child a slave
on account of the condition of the parent. And
in consequence, 1T does forbid the enslavement
of the present victims of that system, who are
held in bondage On no other ground but that
of descent or parentageAan attainder, cor
ruption of blood, working a forfeiture of the
rights they would otherwise enjoy.
Until this clause of the Constitution il re-
pealed, the Federal Judges will be bound by
their oaths of office, to iberate any and every
slave that comes into court demanding his OF
her freedom. There is no evading this, with
out running away from the plain meaning of
the words, disregarding the rule of the Su.
preme Court, before cited,) and doing violence
to the obvious esprit and intent (" Of the pro-
vision, as read in the light of the demands and
the spirit of the Constitution ITSELF and of the
| age and nation in which it was formed.
But, upon the heels of this restriction upon
estate Rights" there Immediately comes an
other.
v. Ex POST FACTo LAW.
"No State shall pass bill of attainder, or
er post .facto law" &c.
An cr post Jacto law is law so framed as to
have retrospective operation, affecting events
and transactions.
1t may also be said, that if las have main.
tanned and proved) there are no positive laws
in the slave States instituting the relation of
| master and slave, or creating Slavery. then no
| slave State has been guilty of granting a title
of nobility" and violating the Federal Constitu.
| ton in this particular.
l answer, that, although the State Govern
ments have no positive law establishing an or.
| der of nobility, they nevertheless tolerate an
order of nobility among them against Law. Not
only so, the official administrators of the State
Governments at the South, not only a,eyyxit
this usurpation, but they assist to sustain and
enforce it; and this they do against law-the
very last thing that the Federal Government,
"a person attained Of high treason orfex all his
lands shements and heredaments Is norYupfed
dad hs po'ey are rendered base And this corruption OF
blood cannot be taken OF but by act of ParIamen nj
! eoss's LaU Dictionary, London sd, IVA