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That these laws have been held to include an insurrection of slaves is indisputable. On receipt of the intelligence of Nat. Turner's insurrection in Southampton, Va., Col. House, then commanding at Fortress Monroe, set out with three companies of United States troops, for the purpose of suppressing the revolt. He was reinforced by a detachment from the United States ships Warren and Natchez, amounting in all to about three hundred men. With our troops and our officers we have actually aided the slaveholder in holding his fellow-man in slavery! We have actually done what our fathers engaged in the Constitution that we should do, namely, aid with the national strength in keeping the slaves in subjection!

CHAPTER XV.
THE CONSTITUTION ACCORDING TO THE EXPOSITION OF ITS FINAL INTERPRETER

"The judicial department of the United States is, in the last resort, the final expositor of the Constitution as to all questions of a judicial nature. Were there no power to interpret, pronounce, and execute the law, the government would either perish through its own imbecility, as was the case with the articles of confederation, or other powers must be assumed by the legislative body, to the destruction of liberty." —Chancellor Kent.

The people of the United States, in adopting the Constitution, made one standard, one fundamental law, and only one. They gave to the government of the United States certain powers. They restricted it as to others. They placed certain prohibitions on the States. The Constitution was to be the one fundamental law of the land, to which all, as well States as people, should submit. Art. 6, sec. 2, provides that the "Constitution and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any thing in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding."

Who now is to tell us what this one standard is, to which all must submit, and which is thus to override all State Constitutions and all State laws? Is it the province of each individual to do it? Then we may have at this moment seventeen million different interpretations, and hence as many different Constitutions, each of which, however, is the supreme law of the land! Are the executive or judicial departments of the States the proper expounders? Then, at this moment, we may have only thirty different interpretations, twenty-nine of which must be wrong, because the supreme law can be but one.

In order, therefore, that the end of the Constitution may be accomplished, that it may really be the supreme law of the land, it must have provided a way in which its only true meaning may be ascertained and definitively settled. Unless it has provided a final interpreter of its meaning, it is the merest folly to style it the supreme law of the land, or to call on us to obey its requirement. Is the Constitution thus deficient? Does it demand uniformity, and at the same time deny the use of those means which are absolutely necessary to produce such uniformity? Does it present a variable, ever-changing standard of duty, and yet demand complete uniformity in practice?

There are three departments in the Government, namely, the Executive, the Legislative, and the Judicial. The first two of these are each, to some extent, supreme in its own sphere; and its acts are incapable of revision elsewhere. "Thus, in measures exclusively of a political, legislative, or executive character, it is plain, that, as the supreme authority as to these questions belongs to the legislative and executive departments, they cannot be re-examined elsewhere. Thus, Congress having the power to declare war, to levy taxes, to appropriate money, to regulate intercourse and commerce with foreign nations, their mode of executing these powers can never become the subject of re-examination in any other tribunal. So, the power to make treaties being confided to the President and Senate, when a treaty is properly ratified, it becomes the law of the land, and no other tribunal can gainsay its stipulations. Yet cases may readily be imagined, in which a tax may be laid, or a treaty made, upon motions and grounds wholly beside the intention of the Constitution. The remedy, however, in such cases is solely by an appeal to the people at the elections, or by the salutary power of amendment provided by the Constitution itself.

"But, where the question is of a different nature, and capable of judicial inquiry and decision, there it admits of a very different consideration. The decision then made, whether in favor or against the constitutionality of the Act, by the State or by national authority, by the legislature or by the executive, being capable in its own nature of being brought to the test of the Constitution, is subject to judicial revision. It is in such cases, as we conceive, that there is a final and common arbiter provided by the Constitution itself, to whose decisions all others are subordinate; and that arbiter is the supreme judicial authority of the courts of the Union" (Story, Comm. Const. sec. 374, 375); for the Constitution declares, Art. 3, sec. 2, that "the judicial power shall extend to all cases in law and equity arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority," &c. And Art. 3, sec. 1: "The judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one supreme court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish."

These constitutional provisions are clear. The Constitution and laws and treaties of the United States are declared to be the supreme law of the land. To expound what the law is, is a judicial act. The judicial power extends to all cases arising under the Constitution, laws, and treaties of the United States. It therefore extends to the exposition of the Constitution, laws, and treaties, when the case before the court properly calls for such exposition. This judicial power, and consequently this power of exposition, it is declared, shall be vested in one supreme court, &c. Most obviously, the exposition given by this one supreme court cannot be overruled by any other constitutional power; else the court is not supreme, else the Constitution is nullified. The decision of the supreme court is the decision of the only constitutionally authorized expounder of the meaning of the Constitution; and such exposition, to be supreme, must be final.

What, then, has this final interpreter declared the meaning of these clauses of the Constitution to be?

Apportionment of Representatives. (Const. Art. 1, sec. 2.)

On the 5th of June, 1794 (Stat. 1794, c. 45), was approved an Act of Congress, "laying duties upon carriages for the conveyance of persons." The duty was uniform throughout the States. One Hylton, in Virginia, refused to pay the duty; alleging that the Act was unconstitutional, because the tax was a direct tax within the meaning of the Constitution, and therefore should have been apportioned among the States according to their federal numbers. He was sued by the United States, and finally the case came before the supreme court of the United States for decision. The following extracts are taken from the opinion of Justice Paterson (Hylton versus the United States, 3 Dallas's Reports, p. 177; 1796): —

"I never entertained a doubt that the principal, I will not say the only, objects that the framers of the Constitution contemplated, as falling within the rule of apportionment, were a capitation-tax and a tax on land. Local considerations, and the particular circumstances and relative situation of the States, naturally lead to this view of the subject. The provision was made in favor of the Southern States. They possessed a large number of slaves; they had extensive tracts of territory, thinly settled, and not very productive. A majority of the States had but few slaves; and several of them, a limited territory, well-settled, and in a high state of cultivation. The Southern States, if no provision had been introduced in the Constitution, would have been wholly at the mercy of the other States. Congress, in such case, might tax slaves at discretion or arbitrarily, and land in every part of the Union. After the same rate or measure, so much a head in the first instance, and so much an acre in the second. To guard them against imposition in these particulars was the reason of introducing the clause in the Constitution which directs that representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the States, according to their respective numbers."

Page 178: "The rule of apportionment is of this nature: it is radically wrong; it cannot be supported by any solid reasoning. Why should slaves, who are a species of property, be represented more than any other property? The rule, therefore, ought not to be extended by construction."

Permission of the African Slave-trade. (Const. Art. 1, sec. 9.)

In the great case of Gibbons vs. Ogden, 9 Wheaton's Reports, pp. 206 and 207 (1824), Chief Justice Marshall, delivering the opinion of the supreme court, makes use of the following language: —

"The Act passed in 1803 (Act Const. 1803, c. 63), prohibiting the importation of slaves into any State which shall itself prohibit their importation, implies, it is said, an admission that the States possess the power to exclude or admit them; from which it is inferred, that they possess the same power with respect to other articles.

"If this inference were correct; if this power were exercised, not under any particular clause in the Constitution, but in virtue of a general right over the subject of commerce to exist as long as the Constitution itself, it might now be exercised. Any State might now import African slaves into its own territory. But it is obvious that the power of the States over this subject, previous to the year 1808, constitutes an exception to the power of Congress to regulate commerce; and the exception is expressed in such words as to manifest clearly the intention to continue the pre-existing right of the States to admit or exclude for a limited period. The words are, '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 1808.' The whole object of the exception is to preserve the power to those States which might be disposed to exercise it, and its language seems to the court to convey this idea unequivocally."

See also pp. 216, 217.

Restoration of Fugitive Slaves. (Const. Art. 4, sec. 2.)

The following extracts are taken from the opinion of the supreme court in the well-known case, Prigg vs. the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (16 Pet. Rep. 609, &c.). Judge Story delivered the opinion: —

"Historically, it is well known, that the object of this clause was to secure to the citizens of the slaveholding States the complete right and title of ownership in their slaves, as property, in every State in the Union into which they might escape from the State where they were held in servitude. The full recognition of this right and title was indispensable to the security of this species of property in all the slaveholding States; and, indeed, was so vital to the preservation of their domestic interests and institutions, that it cannot be doubted that it constituted a fundamental article, without the adoption of which the Union could not have been formed. Its true design was to guard against the doctrines and principles prevalent in the non-slaveholding States, by preventing them from intermeddling with, or obstructing, or abolishing, the rights of the owners of slaves."

Page 612: "If the Constitution had not contained this clause, every non-slaveholding State in the Union would have been at liberty to have declared free all runaway slaves coming within its limits, and to have given them entire immunity and protection against the claims of their masters; – a course which would have created the most bitter animosities, and engendered perpetual strife, between the different States. The clause was, therefore, of the last importance to the safety and security of the Southern States, and could not have been surrendered by them without endangering their whole property in slaves. The clause was accordingly adopted into the Constitution by the unanimous consent of the framers of it; – a proof at once of its intrinsic and practical necessity."

Page 613: "Upon this ground, we have not the slightest hesitation in holding, that, under and in virtue of the Constitution, the owner of a slave is clothed with entire authority, in every State in the Union, to seize and recapture his slave, whenever he can do it without any breach of the peace or any illegal violence. In this sense, and to this extent, this clause of the Constitution may properly be said to execute itself, and to require no aid from legislation, state or national."

Page 625: "Upon these grounds, we are of opinion, that the Act of Pennsylvania upon which this indictment is founded is unconstitutional and void. It purports to punish, as a public offence against that State, the very act of seizing and removing a slave by his master, which the Constitution of the United States was designed to justify and uphold."

Suppression of Slave Insurrections. (Const. Art. 1, sec. 8; Art. 4, sec. 4.)

We are not aware of any decision of the supreme court upon the meaning of these clauses; but it seems difficult to conceive, that they would hold that the word "insurrections" did not include all insurrections.

Such is the Constitution according to the plain, obvious, and common meaning of its terms; such it was intended to be made by its framers; such has been the interpretation constantly followed in the practice of the government, from the time of its adoption until now; and such it is according to the decision of the final interpreter of its meaning. As reasonable men, seeking the truth, we cannot say that there is the slightest doubt whatever on the subject. The Constitution very materially supports slavery!

CHAPTER XVI.
NO UNION WITH SLAVEHOLDERS

"We will extend to the slaveholder all the courtesy he will allow. If he is hungry, we will feed him; if he is in want, both hands shall be stretched out for his aid. We will give him full credit for all the good that he does, and our deep sympathy in all the temptations under whose strength he falls. But to help him in his sin, to remain partners with him in the slave-trade, is more than he has a right to ask." —Wendell Phillips.

No wrong action can be rightfully done. No wrong can be rightfully supported. We can neither rightfully hold slaves nor support others in slaveholding, because, as we have seen, slaveholding is under all circumstances wrong. Some of the provisions of the Constitution, as we have seen, were expressly designed for the purpose of supporting slavery, and for over half a century have very materially supported it. Consequently, these provisions cannot be rightfully obeyed or supported. It is wrong to offer a bounty on slaveholding, – to give the oppressor power and influence, in proportion as he tramples on the rights of his fellow-man; it is wrong to return, or aid in returning, a fugitive slave; it is wrong to aid in keeping the slave in his fetters. These things are wrong, and not all the Constitutions and laws of the universe can make them right. We cannot, therefore, rightfully obey the pro-slavery clauses of the Constitution.

If we cannot rightfully obey them ourselves, we cannot rightfully, voluntarily support others in obeying them. If it is wrong for me to return a fugitive slave, it is wrong for me voluntarily to aid or support another man in doing the act. If it is wrong for me to commit murder, it is no less wrong for me to hand the pistol to the assassin. Whatever it is wrong for us to do ourselves, it is wrong for us voluntarily to aid or support others in doing. Consequently, it is wrong for us voluntarily to aid or support others in obeying the pro-slavery requirements of the Constitution.

If we cannot rightfully obey them, it is wrong for us to promise such obedience. If it is wrong for us voluntarily to support others in their obedience, it is wrong for us to promise any such support. If it is wrong for us to return a fugitive slave, it is wrong for us to promise to return one. If it is wrong for us voluntarily to aid the slave-hunter, it is wrong for us to promise such aid. Whatever it is wrong for us to do or aid others in doing, it is wrong for us to promise to do or aid others in doing. Consequently, it is wrong for us to promise to support these constitutional provisions. We cannot, therefore, accept any office, either state or national, which renders it necessary for us to support these clauses, or to promise to support them. We cannot, therefore, rightfully hold any executive or judicial office, either state or national, or become a member of any State legislature or of Congress; for all these officers are obliged solemnly to swear or affirm that they will "support the Constitution;" and to support the Constitution is to support all of its clauses, as well those which favor slavery as those which do not. If we take this oath, meaning to keep it, we do wrong. If we take it, meaning not to keep it, we add to our wrong, perjury; for we mentally break our oath at the very instant it passes our lips.

Some good men seek to avoid the difficulty by saying, "When I swear to support the Constitution, I mean I will support the good clauses in it, and disobey the bad, and submit to the penalty for such disobedience." But such a course is not a compliance with the terms of the oath. You have sworn "to support the Constitution;" that is, the whole Constitution, – all its clauses, – the bad as sacredly as the good. Your oath is not in the alternative, "I will support the clause requiring the return of fugitive slaves, or pay five hundred dollars for every slave I aid in escaping;" but simply, without any qualification, "I will support the side of the oppressor." If you aid the fugitive slave to escape from his master, you do not support the latter in retaking his property, merely by paying the legal penalty for not giving such support. You would not support a bad law, and yet you say your oath to support it is not broken, because you submit to the penalty for not supporting it. The thief does not support the law of private property, merely by submitting to the legal punishment of his crime. To support is to be active: to submit is to be passive. You swear to be active, and you do not comply with your oath by being merely passive. You have sworn actively to support the recapture of slaves. You break your oath, if you refuse to do this, or do any thing less or different from this.

Others think to find a good excuse for taking the oath, by adopting another alternative, equally unauthorized. "We will support the Constitution," say they, "until we are called on to act under any of its bad clauses; and then we will resign our office, and refuse obedience." Doubtless, honor requires you to resign, if you cannot comply with the terms of your oath; but what right have you to adopt or imagine an alternative in your oath where the law has made none, – where the officer administering it will admit of none? Who does not see the wide difference between an honest oath to support the return of fugitive slaves, and an oath to support such return, but with a firm resolve on your part to refuse such support when called on for it, and to resign? What right have you to take an oath which you have previously resolved not to keep, when called on to comply with? You admit that a bad clause cannot be rightfully supported, else why do you not support it? You admit that the oath obliges you to support the bad clauses of the Constitution as well as the good; else why do you resign, if refusal to support the bad clauses is consistent with your oath? You openly avow, therefore, that, at the very moment you swear to support a clause, you determine never to support it. You swear, and determine not to keep your oath! Such a course seems to us inconsistent with the plainest rules of honesty. We have no right to promise to do wrong, even though we have resolved to do right when the time for action shall arrive.

Others say, "We swear to support the Constitution as we understand it, and we consider it an anti-slavery instrument." In other words, you swear to support an interpretation which is contrary to the plain, obvious, and common meaning of the instrument; contrary to the interpretation put upon it by its framers; contrary to that followed by all the executive and legislative departments of the government, from its first establishment until now; and contrary to that which has been adjudged to be its true interpretation by the final arbiter of its meaning. Of course, you intend to support the true meaning of the Constitution. Do you really believe that the people of the United States did not mean by their words what those words then commonly meant? Do you really doubt the historical fact of the humiliating compromise between the delegates from the Southern and Eastern States in the Philadelphia Convention, by which the latter undertook to barter the moral sense of their constituents for what was supposed to be their interest? Do you really believe that the people have suffered their servants to go on in ignorance of the true meaning for sixty years? In fact, do you venture to affirm, or do you in perfect sincerity and truthfulness believe, that your interpretation has ever at any time been considered right by the people of the United States, or by any considerable number of them? You deceive yourself with words! What is the Constitution? Not the meaning which you or I, or any third person, may please to put upon it; but that meaning, and that meaning only, which consists with its being, what it declares itself to be, the supreme law of the land. Until, therefore, you can show that the Constitution may properly receive as many different interpretations as there are oaths to support it, and still be in fact the supreme law, the one, single, definite rule for all, States as well as people, you have no right to say, "I will support the pro-slavery clauses as I understand them." To support them in any other sense than that which is affixed to them, as the supreme law of the land, is merely to evade the true meaning of your oath.

Others say, "We took the oath before we had any of our present scruples. We would not take the oath now; but, nevertheless, we shall continue in office, and disregard our oath." This excuse seems to us very objectionable. How can you reap the honorary or pecuniary advantages of your office, and honestly refuse compliance with your part of the bargain? When you took office, you were really told, that, if you would swear to support the return of fugitive slaves, &c. you should enjoy these honors and these profits. The conscientious man, who, in striving to better himself, not his condition, discovers afterwards that he cannot rightfully aid, or promise to aid, the slaveholder in retaking his slaves, will not think of claiming the reward which was offered to him solely because he swore to give such aid. He will make haste to resign honors and rewards which he feels can be retained only at the price of his own degradation.

If we cannot rightfully hold any office, state or national, which requires of us a promise to support the Constitution, it is wrong to place, or voluntarily aid in placing, any other person in such office; for, by so doing, we ask him to do wrong. If we vote for Horace Mann, by this act alone we say to him, as distinctly as if the words passed our lips, – "We wish to elect you as representative to Congress. If chosen, we expect and ask you to qualify yourself to act as representative, by swearing to give slavery all constitutional support." Merely by voting for him, we ask him to do wrong, hoping that good may come, almost knowing that good will come! So little faith have we in the final triumph of right and justice, by pursuing only right and just ways! Of so little consequence do we consider it, that the earnest advocate of freedom should commence his holy work by promising very materially to strengthen slavery! But a short time has elapsed since we read one of his most eloquent rebukes of slavery. Our heart beat quickly as we read his earnest words. But if, in the midst of his address, some slaveholder had turned and asked him, "How happens it, sir, that you, who are so very earnest and disinterested in behalf of the rights of the slave, have been willing to swear to support this terrible wrong, to any extent or for any time?" And what answer could be returned? The eloquent tongue would be palsied! Surely that man who has solemnly called God to witness that he will support the oppressor, cannot fail, at some time or another, to feel himself to be unworthy to plead the cause of freedom.

Finally, some say, "This reasoning leads to non-resistance. You disregard the fact that all human governments must contain a greater or less amount of evil; and consequently, if you are ever to support any government in all its requirements, you must support evil." Very true is it that human governments and laws fall short of our relative standard of right, and always of absolute right. What is our duty? Clearly, as moral beings, to support the right, and refuse to support the wrong; as peaceful citizens, to support the right, and submit to the penalty of disobeying the wrong. Nothing more than this is required of us. Nothing less than this is our duty. We are not put into the world, blindly to support all existing governmental wrongs, until they can be constitutionally abolished. We are to be true to ourselves as moral beings. If we can be true to our own souls and support the government, we may give such support, – not otherwise! Right and wrong are not creatures of agreement and law. Neither the Philadelphia Convention that framed the Constitution, nor the State Conventions that adopted it, had power to make wrong in the slightest degree right, or alter at all the moral character of slaveholding. Right is right, the Revised Statutes to the contrary notwithstanding. Wrong is wrong, the Constitution to the contrary notwithstanding. We say, therefore, we will obey the good requirements of the Constitution, and peacefully submit to the penalty of disobeying the bad. This is all that government has a right to ask of us. Institutions were made for man, not man for them. Constitutions are the work of man, and man is to be reverenced before his works. We see no inconsistency or impropriety in supporting the system of free-trade between the States, and refusing to support the domestic slave-trade; in supporting the patent laws, and refusing to aid in returning a runaway slave. We are good-government men, not no-government men. All governments are partly good. All we are willing to support in part: we will actively support the Constitution and laws, so far as conscience permits; we will peacefully submit to legal exaction for disobeying the rest.

Our purpose is accomplished. We have shown that we are politically united with the South in the support of slavery. We have shown that we should constantly bear upon our lips, and in our lives, the motto, "No union with slaveholders, whereby we are obliged to countenance or support slavery." We desire to see a union among the States, but not a slaveholding union! A union of freemen, and Free States for the sake of freedom, no one would more readily support than we. But a union like ours, of freemen and slaveholders, of Free States and Slave States, for the sake in part of securing property in slaves, is demoralizing (how demoralizing has it been!) to both parties, and should receive, as it doubtless at no distant day will receive, the condemnation of the wise and good. In the meantime, it ought not, and it will not, receive either our respect or our voluntary support.