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CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



of the Congress of the United States or of the 

 people, except that the people of each State 

 could act and legislate upon those individual 

 concerns according to their own judgment ex- 

 clusively and the dictates of their own con- 

 sciences ? 



" You must remember that it is proposed by 

 this amendment that the States in which slavery 

 exits shall have no vote, because they are not 

 in a position to exercise the right to vote upon 

 this question. But it is proposed that three- 

 fourths of the States States wherein slavery 

 does not exist ; States which have no interest 

 in that species of property shall get together, 

 and by the action of three-fourths of them de- 

 prive of their property the citizens of the loyal 

 border States ; the men- who have braved this cur- 

 rent of war, and shown the proudest and purest 

 patriotism of any class of men on the face of the 

 earth ; the men who have invested their money 

 in slave property ; the men whose fathers fought 

 side by side with the men of New York and 

 New Jersey on the battle-fields of the country, 

 to drive back the invaders of England. Shall 

 it be said that tinder a republican Government, 

 in a country supposed to be one of liberty, that 

 we can trample on the rights of those men by 

 taking their property without any compensation 

 whatever, and robbing them of that which by 

 the Constitution of the country is guaranteed 

 to them, and which by the blood of their fa- 

 thers who fought against the wickedness and 

 tyranny of England was handed down to them 

 to be perpetuated to them and their children 

 and children's children unimpaired forever?" 



Mr. Pruyn, of New York, said : " "When this 

 subject came up at the last session, I stated my 

 views somewhat at length in regard to it. My 

 position then was substantially that under the 

 power to amend the Constitution we could not 

 interfere with or take away the reserved rights 

 of the States. I do not now propose to discuss 

 the subject of slavery in any way ; I did not 

 then. I look upon the question before us sim- 

 ply as one of power, and it is immaterial in this 

 view whether it relates to slavery, to the mari- 

 tal relation, to the laws of descent, or to any 

 other of the subjects over which the State 

 governments have entire control. I then re- 

 marked that if gentlemen would look at the 

 debates of the State conventions which passed 

 upon the adoption of the Constitution of the 

 United States, they would clearly see that that 

 instrument would never have been ratified had 

 it been supposed by the States that under the 

 power to amend, their reserved rights might 

 one by one be swept away. This is the first 

 time in our history in which an attempt of this 

 kind has been made ; and should it be successful 

 it will, in my judgment, be an alarming invasion 

 of tho principles of the Constitution. 



" I have only to say in addition, that further 

 investigation has confirmed the views I before 

 expressed, and I cannot therefore vote in favor 

 of this proposition, believing the subject to be 

 one not legitimately within our jurisdiction. 



If it be asked what then can be done, I answer, 

 leave the matter with the States, where it be- 

 longs, or obtain a supplementary article to the 

 Constitution, not as an amendment, but as the 

 grant of a new power based on the consent of 

 all the States, as the Constitution itself is." 



Mr. Davis, of New York, replied: ""What 

 powers, sir, were in the purview of those who 

 framed the Constitution and of those by whose 

 votes it was adopted? If gentlemen will rise' 

 from the narrow and restricted interpretation 

 of the text to the magnificence of the exordium 

 by which our fathers in that Constitution an- 

 nounced the formation of a republican Govern- 

 ment founded on the principles of equality and 

 justice, they will find that the people of the 

 United States, in order to form a more perfect 

 union, establish justice, insure domestic tran- 

 quillity, provide for the common defence, pro- 

 mote the general welfare, and secure the bless- 

 ings of liberty to themselves and their posterity, 

 ordained and established our Constitution and 

 the Government of the Union. These were the 

 great and cardinal purposes for which the Gov- 

 ernment was framed. Liberty, that civil and 

 religious liberty which was so clearly and beau- 

 tifully defined in the Declaration of Independ- 

 ence, and which, in the language of that decla- 

 ration, had been proclaimed to the world as the 

 inalienable inheritance of every man, gave vi- 

 tality to the Constitution and the Government 

 which by it was called into life. The unfortu- 

 nate restriction which then existed in our land 

 upon universal freedom, in the form of African 

 slavery, was regarded as temporary in its char- 

 acter, "and as tolerable only by reason of the 

 exigencies of the hour. Our fathers predicted 

 that the time would soon come when the inter- 

 ests of the country would demand that slavery 

 should pass away. Jefferson predicted it, Wash- 

 ington prayed for it, and all the great men of 

 that great age believed that the stain of African 

 slavery would soon cease from the land." 



Mr. Odell, of New York, supported the same 

 views,, saying : " That slavery is dead is an 

 admitted truth. So said my friend and col- 

 league at the last session of Congress. Others 

 upon both sides of this Chamber have admitted 

 the same fact; and the press of the land has 

 been reiterating the same statement since the 

 rebellion began. 



"It is an accepted truth, both North and 

 South, that the peculiar institution is gone, with 

 or without restoration. 



" Now I am in favor of giving it a constitu- 

 tional burial ; not by the irregularity of a proc- 

 lamation by the President, of doubtful consti- 

 tutionality even in his own mind, as he has fre- 

 quently admitted^and which was conceded l>y 

 the late Baltimore convention that renominntt <1 

 Mr. Lincoln, when they proposed this amend- 

 ment to the Constitution as one of the planks 

 of their platform, which was accepted by him 

 in his letter of acceptance of their nomination. 

 He and they both have thus expressed doubts 

 as to the proclamation. And hence we have 



