Year: 1860



 | causes the slavery question will in each case soon virtually settle itself; and before the territory is prepared for admission as a State into the Union this decision, one way or the other, will have been foregone con clusion. Meanwhile, the settlement of the new territory will proceed without serious interruption, and its progress and prosperi. ty will not be endangered or retarded bv violent polilical struggles.

 When in the progress of events the in habitants of any territory shall have reach ed the number required to form State. they will then proceed, in regular man. ner, and in tie exercise of the rights of po- pular sovereignty, to form constitution preparatory to admission into the Union. After this has been done, to employ the language of the Kansas and Nebraska act. they |" shall be received into the Union with or without slavery, as their constitution may prescribe g. the time of their admis- sion" This sound principle has happily been recognized in some form or other, by an almost unarIin DIS vote of both Houses of the last Congress-

 All lawful means at my command have been employed, and shall continue to be employed, to Vacrte the law against the Atican slave te. Alter a most careful and rigorous eR instion of c ar coasts and thorough iu igatio, of tlie subject, we have not been able to discover that any slaves have been imported into the United States except the cargo by the Wanderer, numbering between three and four hundred Those engaged in this unlawful enterprise have been vigorously prosecuted; but not with as much success as their crimes have deserved. A number of them are still un- der prosecution

 Our history proves that the Fathers of the Republic, in advance of all other na- tions, condemned the African slave trade. It was, notwithstanding, deemed expedi- ent by the tramers of the constitution to deprive Congress of the power to prohibit :" the migration or importation of such per sons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit prior to the year 180S

 It will be seen that this restriction on the power of Congress was confined to such States only as might think proper to | | not extend to other States or to the trade carried on abroad Accordingly, we find that so early as the 22d March, 1794, Con- gress passed an act imposing severe penal ties and punishments upon the citizens and residents of the United States who should engage in this trade between foreign na- tlons. The provisions of this act were ex- tended and enforced by the act of the 10th May, 1900.

 Again: The States themselves had clear right to waive the constitutional privilege intended for their benefit, and to prohibit, by their own laws, this trade at any time they thought proper previous to 1S0S.- Several of them exercised this right before that period, and among them some contain ing the greatest number of slaves. This gave to Congress the immediate power to act in regard to all such States, because they themselves had removed the constitu- tional barrier. Congress accordingly pas sed an act on the 28th February, 1903, "to prevent the importation of certain per sons into certain States where by the laws thereof, their admission IS prohibited" In this manner the importation of African slaves into the United States was, to a great extent prohibited some years in advance of 1908.

 As the year 1908 approached, Congress determined not to suffer this trade to exist even for single day after they had the power to abolish it. On the 2d of March, 1897, they passed an act to take effect " from ard afetr the 1st day of January, lo0o," prohibiting the importation of Af- rican slaves into the United States. This was followed by subsequent acts of a simi- lar character, to which l need not special y refer. Such were the principles and such the practice of our ancestors more than fifty years ago in regard to the African slave trade.

 It did not occur to the revered patriots who had been delegates to the convention, and afterwards became members of Con- gress, that in passing these laws they had violated the constitution which they had framed with so much care and deliberation. They supposed that to prohibit Congress, Tn terms, from exercising specified power before an appointed day, necessarily involv- ed the right to exercise this power after that day had arrived.

 If this were not the case, the framers of the constitution had expended much labor Tn valn. Had they imagined that Con- gress would possess no power to prohibit the trade either before or after 1908, they would not have taken so much care to pro- tect the States against the exercise of this power before that period. Nay more they would have attached such vast importance to this provision as to have excluded it from the possibility of future repeal or amendment, to which other portions of the constitution were exposed. It would, then, have been wholly unnecessary to engraft on the fifth article of the constitution, pre- scribing the mode of its own future amend ment, the proviso, "that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect" the provision in the constitution securing to the States the right to admit the importation of African slaves previous to that period.

 According to the adverse construction, the clause itself, on which so much care and discussion had been employed by the l members of the convention, was an abso- lute nullity from the beginning, and all that has since been done under it a mere usur- pation ..

 It was we'll and wise to confer this DOW or on Congress, because, had it been left to the States, its efficient exercise would have been impossible. In that event any one State could have effectually continued the trade not only for itself but for all the other slave States, though never so much against their will. And why? Because African slaves, when once brought within the lm- its of any one State, in accordance with it's laws, cannot practically be excluded from any other State where slavery exists. And even if all the States had separately passed laws prohibiting the importation of slaves, these laws would have failed of effect for want of naval force to capture the savers and guard the coasts. Such force no State can employ in time of peace without the consent of Congress.

 | These acts of Congress, it is believed, have, with very rare and insignificant ex- captions, accomplished heirpurpose. For | q ,aJ of, laIf 4l