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Updated: May 4, 2025
States, to save expense, neglected to send delegates, and repeated appeals had to be made to get representation from nine States so as to pass important measures. A better union was seen by all thoughtful citizens to be necessary, but very difficult to obtain, owing to inter-state differences.
Therefore, Fugitive-Slave Law, District of Columbia, Inter-State Slave-Trade, and what not, were all thrown out of sight for a grand rally on this vital point.
On this subject, as on that of the inter-state slave trade, we misinterpret Virginia and Maryland, by not considering, how unlike was their temper in relation to slavery, amidst the decays and dying throes of that institution half a century ago, to what it is now, when slavery is not only revivified, but has become the predominant interest and giant power of the nation.
And simultaneously with this quickening of the general imagination by experience there are certain other developments in progress that point very clearly to a change under the pressure of this war of just those institutions of nationality, kingship, diplomacy and inter-State competition that have hitherto stood most effectually in the way of a world pacification.
For a long time the idea that the Federal government had any general responsibility in respect to the national transportation system was devoid of practical consequences. In the end an Inter-state Commerce law was passed, in which the presence of a national interest in respect to the American system of transportation was recognized.
In December the venerable Crittenden, of Kentucky, laid before the Senate his famous Suggestions for Compromise. These, besides embodying the above amendment, restored the Missouri Compromise, let each new State decide for itself whether it would be slave or free, and forbade Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia or interfere with the inter-state transportation of slaves.
The fact that railways would finally become the all-important vehicles of inter-state commerce was either overlooked or considered unimportant. The general government did not interfere except when, as in the case of the Pacific lines, its interference and assistance were solicited by private interests.
It is clear, then, that Congress had the power to interdict our trade in human beings with Africa. But, in view of what has been said on that point in view of the language of the Federal Constitution of the proceedings of the Convention, which framed it and of the cotemporary public sentiment is it any less clear, that Congress has the power to interdict the inter-state traffic in human beings?
The Inter-State Railway Law of February 4, 1887, instituting a National Commission, to which all railways crossing state lines were responsible for obedience to certain rules which the same law enjoined, was the boldest assertion of state supervision yet made; but there was a great and growing number of thinkers who believed that mere state oversight would not suffice, and that at least gigantic businesses like telegraph, railway, and mining, must sooner or later be bought and operated out and out by public authority.
But, notwithstanding the conclusive evidence, that the Constitution empowers Congress to abolish the inter-state slave trade, it is incomprehensible to many, that such states as Virginia and Maryland should have consented to deprive themselves of the benefit of selling their slaves into other states.
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