it a law, - contrary to the great first principles of the social compact, cannot be considered a rightful exercise of the legislative authority. The obligation of law, in governments established on express compact and on republican principles, must be determined by the nature of the power on which it is founded. A few instances will suffice to explain what I mean: a law that punishes a citizen for an innocent action, or, in other words, for an act which, when done, was in violation of no existing law; a law that destroys or impairs the lawful private contracts of citizens; A LAW THAT MAKES A MAN A JUDGE IN HIS OWN CAUSE; or a law that takes property from A, and gives it to B. It is against all reason and justice for a people to entrust a legislature with such powers; AND THEREFORE IT CANNOT BE PRESUMED THEY HAVE DONE IT. The genius, the nature, and the spirit, of our State governments amount to a prohibition of such acts of legislation, and the general principles of law forbid them.

“The legislature may enjoin, permit, forbid, and punish; they may declare new crimes, and establish rules of conduct for all its citizens in future cases; they may commend what is right, and prohibit what is wrong; but they cannot change innocence into guilt, or punish innocence as a crime; or violate the right of an antecedent, lawful, private contract, or the right of private property. To maintain our federal or State legislatures possesses such powers, if they had not been expressly restrained, would, in my opinion, be a political heresy, altogether inadmissible in our free, republican governments.”

It might here be asked, could Judge Chase use the above language without having in his mind the situation of the colored man? Must he not,

› Marshall on the Constitution, p. 507.

at the time he delivered this opinion, have been aware of its bearing on the case of a slave? We can hardly conceive it possible it should be otherwise; and yet it may be: we have no proof it had, or that his thoughts were otherwise occupied than with the case before him. But the doctrines are broad and comprehensive, and yet simple. It is but saying a legislature, at least one of the legislatures, of this Union, may legislate for the good and welfare of the individuals of the State; but they cannot pass laws, either of an immoral character, and professedly to the injury of any of its citizens, or make a man a judge in his own cause ; -and what is a slaveholder but a judge in his own cause? These, he says, are altogether contrary to the genius of our government. Can we ask any thing more?

CHAPTER XVI.

CONCLUSION.

WE have now ended our quotations to prove the doctrine we have advanced, - that the Constitution does not nor cannot guarantee slavery ; and, so far as public,documents show and these are the ones on which alone we should rely to elucidate the subject--we cannot but come to the conclusion they all prove there could have been no compact, there was no general understanding, it should be continued; but, on the contrary, all the authority we can glean from the history of the times, the whole system was, for the most part, execrated as a foul blot on the history of man; that it was the main design of our fathers, in coming to this country, to establish a community where impartial laws should be administered, where every person should enjoy his individual rights unmolested by others; that, after many hardships and trials, and many attempts made to overcome their love of freedom, they did succeed in overthrowing a foreign attempt to enslave them, and then established, as they thought and intended, a government in a great measure agreeably to their wishes, when they thought, if every one did not then, they soon would, enjoy

that liberty for which they had so long panted, and left upon record an instrument, though defective in some points, yet, if its doctrines should be carried out, would produce the revolution so much desired; that it is only by departing from these instructions we find ourselves embarrassed by such conflicting interest; and that a return to those few fundamental principles of right and good government will alone make us a happy and prosperous people; that it was wicked men, who from the first attempted to establish this system against the remonstrances of the good; and that, by their persevering endeavors, joined, perhaps, with the honest fear of some, they came near preventing a union of the States; and, if not now checked in their mad career, they will make this land a land of darkness and of the shadow of death, a land where no goodness dwells, where crime, bloodshed, and all iniquity may prevail, where the brute takes possession of the man, and a state of society as much worse than that which existed before its present inhabitants took possession of the soil as can be well conceived, and which is fitting and preparing for it an early destruction, instead of making it, as it might be made, a paradise on earth, where the bounties of Providence are so luxuriantly produced, that we have but to sow, and the seed puts forth her fruit.

Is it, then, too late to bring back the thoughts from their erratic wanderings? to do away the attempt to make lords and masters, and, per consequence, to degrade a portion of our fellow-men

to the level with the brute, or make him subservient only to pamper our lusts and passions? We trust that it is not so; we trust there is yet virtue enough in the land to save it from a degradation so low and so contrary to the aspirations of those who have preceded us. Is it too late to appeal to the right reason of our southern friends, and urge them to stop, and either let the general government take the matter in hand, and do, as we think we have proved they have the power of doing, whatever they may think best in extirpating the system, it being an evil of so great magnitude, or else let the courts decide, and say that every. individual who whips or maltreats another, be that other called either bond or free, is liable to be prosecuted for an assault and battery, and, if any one restrains another against his consent, his freedom may be obtained by a writ of habeas corpus? For we think we have proved the propositions we proposed, to wit:

1. That, whatever may have been the inducement which caused the Constitution of this country to be formed, whether it was, as Mr. Ames stated in a speech delivered in the congress of 1789, that it had "been often justly remarked, that the Constitution under which we deliberate originated in commercial necessity," or whatever else may have been the cause with some, — the people determined that their individual rights should not be invaded, and that no constitution should be formed that put the liberty of the individual in danger. In fact, they took for granted