Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1858-04-29

fugitives in any State are not to be discharged
in consequence fang laD or regulation there
h that is the middle. And service is g due'' by
Tirtue of the laws of the State from which the
PERSONS escape that is the end.
Sir, here is Lord Mansfield s common law doc
rihe, couched in equivalent words-in words
Embracing the entire doctrine and it is incor-
porated into the organic and supreme law of
The land.
come to the Supreme Court of the United
States, and here give you the words of Judge
Story HIMSELF uttered as the organ of the
court. 1t was imprudent, to say the least, to
quote the authority of his great name against
Lord Mansfeld's. Judge Story said
The state of slavery deemed to be mere municipal
FguiatioD founded upon and limited the range of the
territorial laws"-1e Peters, page Gill; Prigg's case.
In respect to this point, a member of the
court (Judge McLean) who sat upon the case,
has declared:
judges certain points ruled in Prggs case there
in regard to the great principle that slavery
limited to the range of laws under which it is sanconed
Pamphlet report of the Dred Scott case, page no.
Among the judges, who thus are compromis-
eddy their associate, was the present Chef JUS
tice
80 much for the law of the land as it was,
from the Revolution to the Constitution, and
under the Constitution, down to the opinion of
a majority of the Supreme Court in the bred
SOFT case, delivered by the Chef Justice, in
March, 1857.
In the second place, as to the powers of Gov
eminent, both Federal and State, over slavery.
AS to the judicial power; the fundamental
law recognized in the States and in the nation
baing that slavery can have no legal existence
except by the authority of the Government hav-
ing jurisdiction, the courts emancipated slaves
whenever and wherever they had been brought
from the bonds of local law into the liberty
Qffls-common law That was the legal and
le9&l conclusion from the fundamental princi-
pie, and | give you two judicial decisions as the
type OF hundreds, from every section Of the
Uhion-slave States and free
"The taking of slave to any country by the owner,
of the slave and produces immediate emancipation.'-
Ninth Louisiana Reports, AS.
As late as 1851, the court of appeals Of
South Carolina declared that slaue being taken
10 free State is free. Commonwealth Us
Peasants, 10 Leigh Reports, page 697)
Such was the judicial authority recognized
and exercised even in slave States, and in States
where the civil law originally prevailed; and
such authority, take it, would have been re-
cognized in every court in the land, Federal OF
State down to the opinion of the Supreme Court
in the case of bred Scott 1t was a judicial re.
cogntion of Lord Mansfcld's maxim of the
common law,
As to the political power the logical conclu-
sion from the fundamental common law maxim
was that all governments have exclusive politi
cal control over slavery, each within its own iu-
risdiction. No other authority can give legality
to slavery no other can regulate it, define the
rights of master and servant, and give the rem
edies appropriate to those rights. Such was thu
theory and the facts correspond. On thii
ground many of the old States abolished slave
ry and Vermont from her very birth excluded
it. On this ground the slave States tolerated
slavery, previously established through British
''positive laws" and have ever since defended
it against all assaults from without. Touch
me not - "mind your own business - sucf
were their maxims, and these were their shielC
and defense
On the same solid ground rests the power o
the Federal Government, within its own exclu-
sive jurisdicton-th is, outside of the States
Wedifer widely, in these latter days, as to the
source and the extent of Federal power ovel
Federal Territory Never was there a doub
that it was in Federal sovereignty, and cxclu
slve and perfect until these latter days never
did the fathers and founders of the Union doub
it. Never, indeed was there q political power
which rested on more solid foundation, anC
rarely was there one sustained by so many pill
lars of strength In 1928, Chief Justice Mar
shall-venerable name-with the concurrence o
the Supreme Court, declared the power to b,
/" ,anxaStionah4'' in fact and equal to g tn
co,n6ihea Poicers Of the General and Of Stat
government, in ertent. Il Peters, 546.) Sir
there was no dissenting opinion in that court
Strange that a fancy should reverse the opinion
of Marshall Passing strange, if the unbias
ed and unanimous opinion of John Marshal
and Bushrod Washington of Virginia. William
johnson of South Carolina, Gabriel Duyal o
Maryland, Joseph Story of Massachusetts,
Smith Thompson of New York, and Rober
Trumbc of Kentucky-(fve of the seven, mari
it, from slave States)-is now to be cast int
utter contempt, by pro-slavery majority of thu
present court, on a case improvised for politi
cal purpose, in the heat of political revolution
and tainted all over with partizan zeal" Chic
Justice Marshall placed the power upon foul
grounds, each being deemed sufficient anC
among them was :" the general right of sover.
eighty, which exists in the Government. ;
These words assert both the existence and thu
power of sovereignty {" in the Government
twenty-five years before, in 1903, John Ran
dolph had claimed for the Federal Government
Z" all the military, civil, and judicial powers
over the Territory of Louisiana on this identical
ground of SOVEREIGNTY. e Benton's Abridg
ment, page 73.) Sovereignty, sir, what is it
Sovereignty i" exists" said John Marshall. Il
was born, not merely made. 1t is the sum o
more than written powers, the attribute of al
governments, with or without tbs machinery o
constitutions, or the recorded forms of law
On our American theory, sovereignty-spring
ing from the people as springs the soul from
God-rules all the States; the people guide it
as God guides man, by written supreme laws
The people are the source Of sovereignty, bu
sovereigntyis the soul Of government. Charter
constitutions, all organic laws, are hinderanco
of flesh and bones to hedge it in. We say tn
sovereignty is in the people, and goes not int
governments except by right of grants. In al
our States, however, the grants carry more thai
the specific powers, essential to the true end O
goSernment-to guard the peoples interests o
rights from exigences unprovidcd for, and dan
gers unforeseen. Without a specific grant II
man doubts, no man can doubt, that it was an
is competant for any State to take control c
slavery. By the implied consent Of all the pee
pie, though it were not written in the organi
law, by virtue of the universally accepted prin
c;nla ~ tl,,.nnnno ctad cofnman law that MOVIE