of the great objects of the Union. The Union | treated with that decent neglect which has at is a means, not an end. By requiring greater least the merit of forbearing to render contusacrifices of domestic power, the end is sacri- macy obtrusive by an ostentatious display of ficed to the means. Suppose the surrender of the very duty which we in part abandon. If all, or nearly all, the domestic powers of legis- the decalogue could be observed in this casuislation were required; the means would there tical manner, we might be grievous sinners, have swallowed up the end. and yet be liable to no reproach. We might persist in all our habitual irregularities, and still be spotless. We might, for example, continue to covet our neighbors' goods, provided they were the same neighbors whose goods we had before coveted-and so of all the other commandments.

The argument that the compact may be enforced, shows that the federal predicament is changed. The power of the Union not only acts on persons or citizens, but on the faculty of the government, and restrains it in a way which the constitution no where authorizes. This new obligation takes away a right which is expressly "reserved to the people or the States," since it is no where granted to the government of the Union. You cannot do indirectly what you cannot do directly. It is said that this Union is competent to make compacts. Who doubts it? But can you make this compact? I insist that you cannot make it, because it is repugnant to the thing to be done.

Will the gentlemen tell us that it is the quantity of slaves, not the quality of slavery, which takes from a government the republican form? Will they tell us (for they have not yet told us) that there are constitutional grounds (to say nothing of common sense) upon which the slavery which now exists in Missouri may be reconciled with a republican form of government, while any addition to the number of The effect of such a compact would be to its slaves (the quality of slavery remaining the produce that inequality in the Union, to which same) from the other States, will be repugnant the constitution, in all its provisions, is adverse. to that form, and metamorphose it into some Every thing in it looks to equality among the nondescript government disowned by the conmembers of the Union. Under it, you cannot stitution? They cannot have recourse to the produce inequality. Nor can you get before-treaty of 1803 for such a distinction, since inhand of the constitution, and do it by anticipation. Wait until a State is in the Union, and you cannot do it: yet it is only upon the State in the Union that what you do begins to act.

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dependently of what I have before observed on that head, the gentlemen have contended that the treaty has nothing to do with the matter. They have cut themselves off from all chance of a convenient distinction in or out of that But it seems, that although the proposed treaty, by insisting that slavery beyond the old restriction may not be justified by the clause United States is rejected by the constitution, of the constitution which gives power to admit and by the law of God as discoverable by the new States into the Union, separately consid- | aid of either reason or revelation; and moreered, there are other parts of the constitution over that the treaty does not include the case, which, combined with that clause, will warrant and if it did could not make it better. They it. And first, we are informed that there is a have therefore completely discredited their own clause in this instrument which declares that theory by their own practice, and left us no Congress shall guarantee to every State a re- theory worthy of being seriously controverted. publican form of government; that slavery This peculiarity in reasoning of giving out a and such a form of government are incompati-universal principle, and coupling with it a pracble; and finally, as a conclusion from these premises, that Congress not only have a right, but are bound to exclude slavery from a new State. Here again, sir, there is an edifying inconsistency between the argument and the measure which it professes to vindicate. By the argument it is maintained that Missouri There is a remarkable inaccuracy on this cannot have a republican form of government, branch of the subject into which the gentlemen and at the same time tolerate negro slavery. have fallen, and to which I will give a moBy the measure it is admitted that Missouri ment's attention without laying unnecessary may tolerate slavery, as to persons already in stress upon it. The government of a new State, bondage there, and be nevertheless fit to be as well as of an old State, must, I agree, be rereceived into the Union. What sort of consti-publican in its form. But it has not been very tutional mandate is this which can thus be made to bend, and truckle, and compromise as if it were a simple rule of expediency that might admit of exceptions upon motives of countervailing expediency. There can be no such pliancy in the peremptory provisions of the constitution. They cannot be obeyed by moieties and violated in the same ratio. They must be followed out to their full extent, or

tical concession that it is wholly fallacious, has indeed run through the greater part of the arguments on the other side; but it is not, as I think, the more imposing on that account, or the less liable to the criticism which I have here bestowed upon it.

clearly explained what the laws which such a government may enact can have to do with its form. The form of the government is material only as it furnishes a security that those laws will protect and promote the public happiness, and be made in a republican spirit The people being, in such a government, the fountain of all power, and their servants being periodically responsible to them for its exercise, the consti

object the encouragement of that very spirit. Attica was full of slaves-yet the love of liberty was its characteristic. What else was it that foiled the whole power of Persia at Marathon and Salamis? What other soil than that which the genial sun of republican freedom illuminated and warmed, could have produced such men as Leonidas and Miltiades, Themistocles and Epaminondas? Of Rome it would be superfluous to speak at large. It is sufficient to name the mighty mistress of the world, before Sylla gave the first stab to her liberties and the great dictator accomplished their final ruin, to be reminded of the practicability of union between civil slavery and an ardent love of liberty cherished by republican establishments.

tution of the Union takes for granted, (except | fundamental laws of Lycurgus, having for its so far as it imposes limitations,) that every such exercise will be just and salutary. The introduction or continuance of civil slavery is manifestly the mere result of the power of making laws. It does not in any degree enter into the form of the government. It presupposes that form already settled, and takes its rise not from the particular frame of the government, but from the general power which every government involves. Make the government what you will in its organization and in the distribution of its authorities, the introduction or continuance of involuntary servitude by the legislative power which it has created can have no influence on its pre-established form, whether monarchical, aristocratical, or republican. The form of government is still one thing, and the law, being a simple exertion of the ordinary faculty of legislation by those to whom that form of government has intrusted it, another. The gentlemen, however, identify an act of legislation sanctioning involuntary servitude with the form of government itself, and then assure us that the last is changed retroactively by the first, and is no longer republican!

If we return home for instruction upon this point, we perceive that same union exemplified in many a State, in which "liberty has a temple in every house, an altar in every heart," while involuntary servitude is seen in every direction. Is it denied that those States possess a republican form of government? If it is, why does our power of correction sleep? Why is the constitutional guaranty suffered to be inBut let us proceed to take a rapid glance at active? Why am I permitted to fatigue you, the reasons which have been assigned for this as the representative of a slaveholding State, notion that involuntary servitude and a repub- with the discussion of the "nugæ canoræ lican form of government are perfect antipa- (for so I think them) that have been forced into thies. The gentleman from New Hampshire* this debate contrary to all the remonstrances has defined a republican government to be that of taste and prudence? Do gentlemen perceive in which all the men participate in its power the consequences to which their arguments and privileges: from whence it follows that must lead if they are of any value? Do they where there are slaves, it can have no existence. reflect that they lead to emancipation in the A definition is no proof, however, and even if old United States-or to an exclusion of Delait be dignified (as I think it was) with the name ware, Maryland, and all the South, and a great of a maxim, the matter is not much mended. portion of the West from the Union? My It is Lord Bacon who says "that nothing is so honorable friend from Virginia has no business easily made as a maxim;" and certainly here, if this disorganizing creed be any thing definition is manufactured with equal facility. but the production of a heated brain. The A political maxim is the work of induction, and State to which I belong, must "perform a luscannot stand against experience, or stand on tration "-must purge and purify herself from any thing but experience. But this maxim, or the feculence of civil slavery, and emulate the definition, or whatever else it may be, sets fact States of the North in their zeal for throwing at defiance. If you go back to antiquity, you down the gloomy idol which we are said to will obtain no countenance for this hypothesis; worship, before her senators can have any title and if you look at home you will gain still less. to appear in this high assembly. It will be in I have read that Sparta, and Rome, and Athens, vain to urge that the old United States are exand many others of the ancient family, were ceptions to the rule-or rather (as the gentlerepublics. They were so in form undoubtedly men express it), that they have no disposition -the last approaching nearer to a perfect to apply the rule to them. There can be no democracy than any other government which exceptions by implication only, to such a rule; has yet been known in the world. Judging of and expressions which justify the exemption of them also by their fruits, they were of the the old States by inference, will justify the like highest order of republics. Sparta could exemption of Missouri, unless they point exscarcely be any other than a republic, when a clusively to them, as I have shown they do not. Spartan matron could say to her son just march- The guarded manner, too, in which some of ing to battle, "Return victorious, or return no the gentlemen have occasionally expressed more." It was the unconquerable spirit of themselves on this subject, is somewhat alarmliberty, nurtured by republican habits and in- ing. They have no disposition to meddle with stitutions, that illustrated the pass of Ther- slavery in the old United States. Perhaps not mopyla. Yet slavery was not only tolerated-but who shall answer for their successors? in Sparta, but was established by one of the

*Mr. Morril.

Who shall furnish a pledge that the principle once ingrafted into the constitution, will not grow, and spread, and fructify, and overshadow

In a word, the resort to this portion of the constitution for an argument in favor of the proposed restriction, is one of those extravagancies (I hope I shall not offend by this expression) which may excite our admiration, but cannot call for a very rigorous refutation. I have dealt with it accordingly, and have now done with it.

that the constitutional command to guarantee | be made certain by a yet more doubtful negato the States a republican form of government, tive upon power-or rather a doubtful negagives power to coerce those States in the tive, where there is no evidence of the corresadjustment of the details of their constitutions ponding affirmative, is to make out the affirmaupon theoretical speculations. But surely it is tive and to justify us in acting upon it, in a passing strange that any man, who thinks at matter of such high moment, that questionable all, can view this salutary command as the power should not dare to approach it. If the grant of a power so monstrous; or look at it negative were perfectly clear in its import, in any other light than as a protecting mandate the conclusion which has been drawn from it to Congress to interpose with the force and would be rash, because it might have proauthority of the Union against that violence ceeded, as some of the negatives in whose and usurpation, by which a member of it company it is found evidently did proceed, from might otherwise be oppressed by profligate and great anxiety to prevent such assumptions of powerful individuals, or ambitious and unprin- authority as are now attempted. But when it cipled factions. is conceded that the supposed import of this negative (as to the term migration) is ambiguous, and that it may have been used in a very different sense from that which is imputed to it, the conclusion acquires a character of boldness, which, however some may admire, the wise and reflecting will not fail to condemn. In the construction of this clause, the first remark that occurs is, that the word migration is associated with the word importation. I do not insist that "noscitur a sociis" is as good a rule in matters of interpretation as in common life-but it is, nevertheless, of considerable weight when the associated words are not qualified by any phrases that disturb the effect of their fellowship; and unless it announces, (as in this case it does not,) by specific phrases combined with the associated term, a different intention. Moreover, the ordinary unrestricted import of the word migration is what I have here supposed. A removal from district to district, It is said that this clause empowers Con- within the same jurisdiction, is never denomigress, after the year 1808, to prohibit the pas-nated a migration of persons. I will concede sage of slaves from State to State, and the word "migration" is relied upon for that pur

We are next invited to study that clause of the constitution which relates to the migration or importation, before the year 1808, of such persons as any of the States then existing should think proper to admit. It runs thus: "The migration or importation of such persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation not exceeding ten dollars for each person."

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to the honorable gentlemen, if they will accept the concession, that ants may be said to migrate when they go from one ant-hill to another at no great distance from it. But even then they could not be said to migrate, if each ant-hill was their home in virtue of some federal compact with insects like themselves. But, however this may be, it should seem to be certain that human beings do not migrate, in the sense of a constitution, simply because they transplant themselves, from one place, to which that constitution extends, to another which it equally covers.

If this word migration applied to freemen and not to slaves, it would be clear that removal from State to State would not be comprehended within it. Why then, if you choose to apply it to slaves, does it take another meaning as to the place from whence they are to come?

I will not say that the proof of the existence of a power by a clause which, as far as it goes, denies it, is always inadmissible; but I will say that it is always feeble. On this occasion, it is singularly so. The power, in an affirmative shape, cannot be found in the constitution; or if it can, it is equivocal and unsatisfactory. How do the gentlemen supply this deficiency? by the aid of a negative provision in an article of the constitution in which many restrictions are inserted ex abundanti cautela, from which it is plainly impossible to infer that the power to which they apply would otherwise have existed. Thus "No bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed." Take away the restriction-could Congress pass a bill of attainder, the trial by jury in criminal cases Sir, if we once depart from the usual accepbeing expressly secured by the constitution? tation of this term, fortified as it is by its union The inference, therefore, from the prohibition with another in which there is nothing in this in question, whatever may be its meaning, to respect equivocal, will gentlemen please to inthe power which it is supposed to restrain, but timate the point at which we are to stop? Miwhich you cannot lay your finger upon with gration means, as they contend, a removal from any pretensions to certainty, must be a very State to State, within the pale of the common doubtful one. But the import of the prohibi- government. Why not a removal also from tion is also doubtful, as the gentlemen them-county to county within a particular Stateselves admit. So that a doubtful power is to from plantation to plantation-from farm to