The southern aegis, and Harford County intelligencer. (Bel Air, Md.) 1862-1864, 1862-08-23

Il
best to promote their happiness and pros
perity. These objects are totally distinct
in their nature and in Interpreting and
exercising the grant of the power of excia-
sive legislation, that distinction should be
constantly borne in mind. Is it necessa-
ry, in order to render this place COM
Portable seat of the general government, to
abolish slavery within its limits ? No
one can or will advance such a PROPOSE
ton. The government has remained here
near forty years without the slightest in
convenience from the presence Of domes-
tic slavery. Is it necessary to the we'll
being of the people of the District that
slavery should DO abolished from amongst
them They not only neither ask nor
desire, but are almost unanimously oppos-
ed to it. 1t exists here in the mildest and
most mitigated form. In population of
~, 1874, there were, at last enumeration of
the population of the United States. but
6,1l9 slaves. The number has not prob.
ably much increased since. They are
dispersed over the ten miles square, enga-
ged in the quiet pursuits of husbandry, or
in the mental offices of domestic life. IF
it were necessary to the efficiency of this
place as seat of the general government
to abolish slavery, which is utterly denied,
the abolition should be confined to the ne
cessity which prompts it, that is, to the
limits Of the city Of Washington itself.
Beyond those limits persons concerned in
the government Of the United States have
no more to do with the inhabitants of the
District, than they have with the inhabi-
tants of the adjacent counties of Maryland
and Virginia, which lie beyond the Dis
trict. ~,.
To'abolish slavery within the District
of Columbia, whilst it remains in Virgin
ia and Maryland, situated as the District
is, within the very heart of those States,
would expose them to great practical in
convenience and annoyance. The District
would become place of refuge and escape
for fugitive slaves from the two States,
and a place from which a spirit of dis
content, insubordiuation and insurrec-
ton might be fostered and encouraged in
the two. Suppose, as was at one time
under consideration, Pennsylvania had
granted ten miles square within its limits
for the purpose of seat of the General
Government; could Congress, without a
violation of good faith, have introduced
and established slavery within the bosom
of that Commonwealth, in the ceded ter
ritory, after she had abolished it so long ago
year as the 1880? Yet the inconvenience
to Pennsylvania in the case supposed, would
have been much less than that to Virginia
and Maryland in the case we are arguing.
1t was upon this view of the subject
that the Senate, at its last session, solemn
ly declared that 1t acoaM be violation of
implied faith, resulting from the transac-
ton of the cession, to abolish slavery in
the District of Columbia. And would it
not be? BY implied faith is meant that
when grant is made for one avowed and
declared purpose known to the parties,
the grant should not be perverted to anots-
en- purpose, ,snauoaoed and andeclared, and
injurious to the grantor. The grant, in
the case we are considering, of the terri
tory of Columbia, was for seat Of Coz
e,anse,,t. Whatever power is necessary
to accomplish that object is carried along
by the grant. But the abolition Of slave
ry is not necessary to the enjoyment of
this site as seat of the general govern
ment. The grant in the Constitution, of