Finally, that the grant in question is to be interpreted according to the obvious import of its terms, is proved by the fact, that Virginia proposed an amendment to the United States’ Constitution at the time of its adoption, providing that this clause “should be so construed as to give power only over the police and good government of said District,” which amendment was rejected.

The former part of the clause under consideration, “Congress shall have power to exercise exclusive legislation,” gives sole jurisdiction, and the latter part, “in all cases whatsoever,” defines the extent of it.  Since, then, Congress is the sole legislature within the District, and since its power is limited only by the checks common to all legislatures, it follows that what the law-making power is intrinsically competent to do any where, Congress is competent to do in the District of Columbia.  Having disposed of preliminaries, we proceed to state and argue the real question at issue.

IS THE LAW-MAKING POWER COMPETENT TO ABOLISH SLAVERY WHEN NOT RESTRICTED IN THAT PARTICULAR BY CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS—­or, IS THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY WITHIN THE APPROPRIATE SPHERE OF LEGISLATION?

1.  In every government, absolute sovereignty exists somewhere.  In the United States it exists primarily with the people, and ultimate sovereignty always exists with them.  In each of the States, the legislature possesses a representative sovereignty, delegated by the people through the Constitution—­the people thus committing to the legislature a portion of their sovereignty, and specifying in their constitutions the amount of the grant and its conditions.  That the people in any state where slavery exists, have the power to abolish it, none will deny.  If the legislature have not the power, it is because the people have reserved it to themselves.  Had they lodged with the legislature “power to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever,” they would have parted with their sovereignty over the legislation of the State, and so far forth, the legislature would have become the people, clothed with all their functions, and as such competent, during the continuance of the grant, to do whatever the people might have done before the surrender of their power:  consequently, they would have the power to abolish slavery.  The sovereignty of the District of Columbia exists somewhere—­where is it lodged?  The citizens of the District have no legislature of their own, no representation in Congress, and no political power whatever.  Maryland and Virginia have surrendered to the United States their “full and absolute right and entire sovereignty,” and the people of the United States have committed to Congress by the Constitution, the power to “exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over such District.”