This comes with an ill grace from Maryland and Virginia.  They knew the constitution.  They were parties to it.  They had sifted it, clause by clause, in their State conventions.  They had weighed its words in the balance—­they had tested them as by fire; and, finally, after long pondering, they adopted the constitution.  And afterward, self-moved, they ceded the ten miles square, and declared the cession made “in pursuance of” that oft-cited clause, “Congress shall have power to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over such District.”  And now verily “they would not have ceded if they had supposed!” &c.  Cede it they did, and in “full and absolute right both of soil and persons.”  Congress accepted the cession—­state power over the District ceased, and congressional power over it commenced,—­and now, the sole question to be settled is, the amount of power over the District lodged in Congress by the constitution.  The constitution—­THE CONSTITUTION—­that is the point.  Maryland and Virginia “suppositions” must be potent suppositions to abrogate a clause of the United States’ Constitution!  That clause either gives Congress power to abolish slavery in the District, or it does not—­and that point is to be settled, not by state “suppositions,” nor state usages, nor state legislation, but by the terms of the clause themselves.

Southern members of Congress, in the recent discussions, have conceded the power of a contingent abolition in the District, by suspending it upon the consent of the people.  Such a doctrine from declaimers like Messrs. Alford, of Georgia, and Walker, of Mississippi, would excite no surprise; but that it should be honored with the endorsement of such men as Mr. Rives and Mr. Calhoun, is quite unaccountable.  Are attributes of sovereignty mere creatures of contingency?  Is delegated authority mere conditional permission?  Is a constitutional power to be exercised by those who hold it, only by popular sufferance?  Must it lie helpless at the pool of public sentiment, waiting the gracious troubling of its waters?  Is it a lifeless corpse, save only when popular “consent” deigns to puff breath into its nostrils?  Besides, if the consent of the people of the District be necessary, the consent of the whole people must be had—­not that of a majority, however large.  Majorities, to be authoritative, must be legal—­and a legal majority without legislative power, or right of representation, or even the electoral franchise, would be truly an anomaly!  In the District of Columbia, such a thing as a majority in a legal sense is unknown to law.  To talk of the power of a majority, or the will of a majority there, is mere mouthing.  A majority?  Then it has an authoritative will, and an organ to make it known, and an executive to carry it into effect—­Where are they?  We repeat it—­if the consent of the people of the District be necessary, the consent of every