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But if they will endeavor to procure the abolition of the slave-trade, let them prefer their petitions to the State legislatures, who alone have the power of forbidding the importation; I believe their applications there would be improper; but if they are any where proper, it is there. I look upon the address then to be ill-judged, however good the intention of the framers. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr.
In the committee on resolutions where the States were equally represented, the majority were anti-Douglas; they submitted a report affirming Davis's position that territorial legislatures had no right to prohibit slavery and that the Federal Government should protect slavery against them.
Now this joint resolution proposes simply to submit this amendment for ratification to the Legislatures of the different States. The Legislatures are not the States; the Legislatures are not the people in their sovereign capacity; Legislatures are not the source from which all power emanates.
Had Congress been called together immediately, these States would have been virtually disfranchised. If an intermediate period had been selected, several of the States would have been compelled to hold extra sessions of their legislatures, at great inconvenience and expense, to provide for elections at an earlier day than that previously fixed by law.
Since the abolition of slavery, the Legislatures which have assembled in the insurrectionary States have passed laws relating to the freedmen, and in nearly all the States they have discriminated against them.
Let them embody themselves in societies, and send petitions up to their different legislatures, entreating their husbands, fathers, brothers and sons, to abolish the institution of slavery; no longer to subject woman to the scourge and the chain, to mental darkness and moral degradation; no longer to tear husbands from their wives, and children from their parents; no longer to make men, women, and children, work without wages; no longer to make their lives bitter in hard bondage; no longer to reduce American citizens to the abject condition of slaves, of "chattels personal;" no longer to barter the image of God in human shambles for corruptible things such as silver and gold.
These are elected by the local legislatures for a term of six years, and one-third of the number retire every two years. Each Senator must be thirty years of age; he must be a resident of the State which he represents, and he must have been naturalised for nine years. The Lower House, or House of Representatives, is perhaps the most purely popular body in the world.
Such was the substance of this confederation or union. After much discussion, at thirty-nine sittings, the articles were approved by Congress, transmitted to the several State Legislatures, and, meeting with their approbation, were ratified by all the delegates on the 15th of November, 1778. Congress maintained an erect posture, although its affairs then wore the most gloomy aspect.
Political topics engrossed attention. When Parliament ordered that the colonies should support the troops quartered on them, and that the royal officers should have fixed salaries, to be obtained, not by the voluntary grants of colonial legislatures, but by the levy of new duties, there was a renewed outburst of disaffection, especially in New York and Boston . By way of response to a petition that was sent to the king against these Acts of Parliament, four regiments of troops were sent to Boston.
I look beyond the excitement of the hour and all the outbreaking passion which sometimes shows itself in the South, which leads them to make enactments in their Legislatures which are disgraceful to themselves, and can never be sanctioned by the people of this country, and also in spite of all the excitement of the North, I behold the future full of confidence and hope.
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