“The time has arrived when we must have new guaranties under the constitution, or the Union must be dissolved. Our views of the constitution are not those of the majority.  AN OVERWHELMING MAJORITY think that by the constitution, Congress may abolish slavery in the District of Columbia—­may abolish the slave trade between the States; that is, it may prohibit their being carried out of the State in which they are—­and prohibit it in all the territories, Florida among them.  They think, NOT WITHOUT STRONG REASONS, that the power of Congress extends to all of these subjects.”

Direct testimony to show that the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District, has always till recently been universally conceded, is perhaps quite superfluous.  We subjoin, however, the following: 

The Vice-President of the United States in his speech on the Missouri question, quoted above, after contending that the restriction of slavery in Missouri would be unconstitutional, declares, that the power of Congress over slavery in the District “COULD NOT BE QUESTIONED.”  In the speech of Mr. Smyth, of Va., also quoted above, he declares the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District to be “UNDOUBTED.”

Mr. Sutherland, of Penn., in a speech in the House of Representatives, on the motion to print Mr. Pinckney’s Report, is thus reported in the Washington Globe, of May 9th, ’36.  “He replied to the remark that the report conceded that Congress had a right to legislate upon the subject in the District of Columbia, and said that SUCH A RIGHT HAD NEVER BEEN, TILL RECENTLY, DENIED.”

The American Quarterly Review, published at Philadelphia, with a large circulation and list of contributors in the slave states, holds the following language in the September No. 1833, p. 55:  “Under this ‘exclusive jurisdiction,’ granted by the constitution, Congress has power to abolish slavery and the slave trade in the District of Columbia.  It would hardly be necessary to state this as a distinct proposition, had it not been occasionally questioned.  The truth of the assertion, however, is too obvious to admit of argument—­and we believe has NEVER BEEN DISPUTED BY PERSONS WHO ARE FAMILIAR WITH THE CONSTITUTION.”

OBJECTIONS TO THE FOREGOING CONCLUSIONS CONSIDERED.

We now proceed to notice briefly the main arguments that have been employed in Congress and elsewhere against the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District.  One of the most plausible is, that “the conditions on which Maryland and Virginia ceded the District to the United States, would be violated, if Congress should abolish slavery there.”  The reply to this is, that Congress had no power to accept a cession coupled with conditions restricting that “power of exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District,” which was given it by the constitution.

To show the futility of the objection, we insert here the acts of cession.  The cession of Maryland was made in November, 1788, and is as follows:  “An act to cede to Congress a district of ten miles square in this state for the seat of the government of the United States.”