ny such power was given; but this provision is connected with so
many objectionable, not to say odious ones, that your Commissioners
felt themselves bound to vote against it. These surrender all the
power of Congress over the District of Columbia, and over other places
within its exclusive jurisdiction, in respect of slavery and its
ultimate extinction, however much the people of the United States in
the progress of civilization and humanity may desire it; and by the
sixth section this provision is made unalterable without the consent
of all the States. The influences produced by the existence of slavery
at the National Capital, upon public men and public measures, are well
known; and while they may be tolerated, as they have been, without any
desire to exercise the power of eradicating the cause of the evil,
still a sound policy requires that the power should not be abandoned.
Connected with this surrender of a well-defined and necessary power,
are other provisions in regard to the transit of slaves through the
free States; in effect, permitting the carrying on of the internal
slave-trade through these States, unless they pass laws forbidding it.
This trade through the free States is not made dependent upon the
consent of the States, but is made lawful without dissent; and the
result is, that if this amendment shall be adopted, every free State
will find it necessary to legislate for its exclusion, or to permit
and regulate the transit by its own laws. These laws would be deemed
odious by the slave States, and would produce dissatisfaction and
irritation. Besides, in most of the free States, the normal legal
condition of every person is that of freedom; this constitutional
provision would at once change the local law of the State, and operate
as a positive recognition of slavery in the absence of any new
enactment. Thus, every free State would find itself compelled to adopt
a slave code, more or less extensive in its character, regulating or
excluding the inter-state slave-trade. Taking this in connection with
the fourth section, authorizing the States to legislate upon the
subject of fugitive slaves, and by their judicial and ministerial
officers to enforce their delivery, contrary to the decision of the
Supreme Court of the United States, which declares all such
interference on the part of the States unconstitutional, it is
apparent that the legislatures of all the free States would be beset
by hordes of persons in th