nflicted with it, _accepting_ the cessions
was a violation of the constitution. If they accorded, the objector has
already had his answer. The fact that Congress accepted the cessions,
proves that in its view their _terms_ did not conflict with the
constitutional grant of "power to exercise exclusive legislation in all
cases whatsoever over such District." The inquiry whether these acts of
cession were consistent or inconsistent with the United States
constitution, is totally irrelevant to the question at issue. What saith
the CONSTITUTION? That is the question. Not, what saith Virginia, or
Maryland, or--equally to the point--John Bull! If Maryland and Virginia
had been the authorized interpreters of the constitution for the Union,
these acts of cession could hardly have been magnified more than they
were by Messrs. Garland and Wise in the last Congress. A true
understanding of the constitution can be had, forsooth, only by holding
it up in the light of Maryland and Virginia legislation!

We are told, again, that those States would not have ceded the District
if they had supposed the constitution gave Congress power to abolish
slavery in it.

This comes with an ill grace from Maryland and Virginia. They _knew_ the
constitution. They were parties to it. They had sifted it, clause by
clause, in their State conventions. They had weighed its words in the
balance--they had tested them as by fire; and finally, after long
pondering, they _adopted_ the constitution. And _afterward_, self-moved,
they ceded the ten miles square, and declared the cession made "in
pursuance of" that oft-cited clause, "Congress shall have power to
exercise exclusive legalisation in all cases whatsoever over such
District," &c. And now verily "they would not have ceded if they had
_supposed_!" &c. Cede it they _did_, and "in full and absolute right
both of soil and persons." Congress accepted the cession--state power
over the District ceased, and congressional power over it commenced--and
now, the sole question to be settled is, _the amount of power over the
District, lodged in Congress by the constitution_. The constitution--the
CONSTITUTION--that is the point. Maryland and Virginia "suppositions"
must be potent suppositions, to abrogate a clause in the United States
Constitution! That clause either gives Congress power to abolish slavery
in the District, or it does _not_--and that point is to be settled, not
by state "suppositions," nor state usag