mpugned before the
people, and the question has given rise to angry political conflicts
throughout the country. Those who have appealed from this judgment of
our highest constitutional tribunal to popular assemblies would, if they
could, invest a Territorial legislature with power to annul the sacred
rights of property. This power Congress is expressly forbidden by the
Federal Constitution to exercise. Every State legislature in the Union
is forbidden by its own constitution to exercise it. It can not be
exercised in any State except by the people in their highest sovereign
capacity, when framing or amending their State constitution. In like
manner it can only be exercised by the people of a Territory represented
in a convention of delegates for the purpose of framing a constitution
preparatory to admission as a State into the Union. Then, and not until
then, are they invested with power to decide the question whether
slavery shall or shall not exist within their limits. This is an act of
sovereign authority, and not of subordinate Territorial legislation.
Were it otherwise, then indeed would the equality of the States in the
Territories be destroyed, and the rights of property in slaves would
depend not upon the guaranties of the Constitution, but upon the
shifting majorities of an irresponsible Territorial legislature. Such
a doctrine, from its intrinsic unsoundness, can not long influence any
considerable portion of our people, much less can it afford a good
reason for a dissolution of the Union.

The most palpable violations of constitutional duty which have yet been
committed consist in the acts of different State legislatures to defeat
the execution of the fugitive-slave law. It ought to be remembered,
however, that for these acts neither Congress nor any President can
justly be held responsible. Having been passed in violation of the
Federal Constitution, they are therefore null and void. All the courts,
both State and national, before whom the question has arisen have from
the beginning declared the fugitive-slave law to be constitutional. The
single exception is that of a State court in Wisconsin, and this has not
only been reversed by the proper appellate tribunal, but has met with
such universal reprobation that there can be no danger from it as a
precedent. The validity of this law has been established over and over
again by the Supreme Court of the United States with perfect unanimity.
It is founded upon an