CONGRESS, U. S. 



343 



articles property can exist only by force, and 

 does exist by force. 



"But that is immaterial to the issue. Here 

 is first the Constitution declaring, and then here 

 are the courts in all their judgments in which 

 the question came up, deciding that property 

 does exist in slaves, although it has its origin 

 in force and against natural law. Let me read 

 from the decision in the case of Prigg vs. Penn- 

 sylvania, After quoting the clause of the Con- 

 stitution for the rendition of fugitive slaves, the 

 court say : 



The last clause is that, the true interpretation where- 

 of is directly in judgment before us. Historically, it 

 is well known that the object of this clause was to se- 

 cure to the citizens of the slaveholding States the com- 

 plete right and title of ownership in their slaves, as 

 propertv, in every State in the Union into which they 

 might escape froin the State where they were held in 

 servitude. The full recognition of this right and title 

 was indispensable to the security of this species of 

 property in all the slaveholding States ; and, indeed, 

 was so vital to the preservation of their domestic in- 

 terests and institutions, that it cannot be doubted that 

 it constituted a fundamental article, without the adop- 

 tion of which the Union could not have been formed. 

 Its true design was to guard against the doctrines and 

 principles prevalent in thenon-slaveholding States, by 

 preventing them from intermeddling with, or obstruct- 

 ing or abolishing the rights of the owners of slaves. 

 16 Peters's fieporte, p. 611. 



" Could anything be more clear or specific ? 

 Here the right of property of the owner in the 

 slave is fully recognized bv the decision of the 

 Supreme Court. That decision was rendered 

 by Mr. Justice Story, and all the other members 

 of the court sanctioned and approved the 

 same principle. He states it as a matter of 

 history that the incorporation of the article rec- 

 ognizing the full right of the owners of slaves 

 to that property and providing that if they es- 

 caped and went into other States the laws of 

 those other States should in no degree and to 

 no extent interfere with the right of the owner 

 to the slave, was the essential condition upon 

 which the Constitution was formed and with- 

 out which it never would have been formed. 

 Any gentleman who reads Mr. Madison's 

 Papers, in which he gives the propositions and 

 debates of the convention upon the subject of 

 slavery, will, if his mind is not wholly obfus- 

 cated by prejudice, give immediate consent to 

 the proposition here laid down by Judge Story. 

 I could refer to a dozen cases decided by the 

 Supreme Court of the United States and by 

 the circuit court of Ohio, of which Judge 

 McLean was presiding judge, recognizing in 

 the most distinct and unqualified terms the 

 right of property of the owner of a slave. 

 There have been various cases tried in that 

 State and in Indiana, and in Michigan, in which 

 all these questions came up, and in every solitary 

 case it was urged in the clearest and most con- 

 clusive legal logic that the right of the master 

 to pursue his slave and take him wherever he 

 found him without committing a breach of the 

 peace, was secured to him by the Constitution 

 and by the fugitive slave law ; and that if any 

 citizen interfered with that right and aided the 



slave in making his escape, that citizen should 

 respond to the claimant of the slave in the 

 amount of the damages which he sustained by 

 such interference. The ordinance of 1787 has a 

 peculiar provision in relation to the reclama- 

 tion of slaves. There was a slave sought to be 

 reclaimed from Indiana in contravention to that 

 provision I have the case here and Judge 

 McLean decided explicitly that the provision 

 of the Constitution of the United States and the 

 fugitive slave law controlled and overruled the 

 provision in the ordinance of 1787, and author- 

 ized the reclamation of the slaves precisely ac- 

 cording to the letter of the Constitution and 

 of the fugitive slave law. 1 ' 



The question was subsequently taken on the 

 bill, when it was passed by the following vote : 



TEAS. Messrs. Anthony, Browning, Chandler, Clark, 

 Collamer, Dixon, Doolittle, Fessenden, Foote, Foster, 

 Grimes, Hale, Harlan, Harris, Howard, Howe, King, 

 Lane of Indiana, Lane of Kansas, Morrill, Pomeroy, 

 Sherman, Sumner, Ten Eyck, Trumbull, Wade, 

 Wilkinson, Wilmot, and Wilson of Massachusetts 

 29. 



XATS. Messrs. Bayard, Carlile, Davis, Henderson, 

 Kennedy. Latham, McDougall, Xesmith, Powell, Sauls- 

 bury, Stark, Willey, Wilson of Missouri, and Wright 

 li. 



The debate in the House on this bill was 

 brief. Mr. Xixon. of Xew Jersey. Mr. Blair, 

 of Missouri. Mr. Bingham, Mr. Riddle, of Ohio, 

 and Mr. Crittenden, of Kentucky, were the 

 principal speakers. 



Mr. Crittenden thus expressed his views of 

 the measure: " The immediate question before 

 us is the abolition of slavery in the District of 

 Columbia. That is the object proposed in the 

 bill under consideration. It has been a ques- 

 tion for a long time agitating the country. 

 For the first thirty or forty years of our exist- 

 ence as a nation, the records of Congress bear 

 no evidence of any such motion ever having 

 been made, of any measure having ever been 

 proposed for the abolition of slavery here, or 

 to change the condition in which the Govern- 

 ment accepted and found it. It was only, sir, 

 when a new spirit sprung up in the land, when 

 a new agitation commenced for the abolition 

 of slavery generally, that this feeling concen- 

 trated, in some degree, upon the District of 

 Columbia, and from that time down to the 

 present, with an always persevering purpose, 

 this measure has been pressed. It has been 

 rejected time and again. It has been judged 

 impolitic by our predecessors, or beyond their 

 power. For one reason or another. Congress 

 has always refused to act upon the subject. 

 These are the lessons of the past. In the ear- 

 liest and purest and best and palmiest days of 

 the Republic no attempt was ever made to pass 

 such a measure ; and for the last twenty-five 

 or thirty years it has been presented only 

 to be rejected. The Senate of the United 

 States has now given its sanction to the meas- 

 ure, and it is before you for your final con- 

 sideration. 



" Of all inauspicious times, it seems to me 



