, Chief Justice Cranch, and Judges Morsel and Van Ness, of the
District, has already been given. In the debate in Congress on the
memorial of the Society of Friends, in 1790, Mr. Madison, in speaking of
the territories of the United States, explicitly declared, from his own
knowledge of the views of the members of the convention that framed the
constitution, as well as from the obvious import of its terms, that in
the territories, "Congress have certainly the power to regulate the
subject of slavery." Congress can have no more power over the
territories than that of "exclusive legislation in all cases
whatsoever," consequently, according to Mr. Madison, "it has certainly
the power to regulate the subject of slavery in the" _District_. In
March, 1816, Mr. Randolph of Va. introduced a resolution for putting a
stop to the domestic slave trade within the District. December 12, 1827,
Mr. Barney, of Md. presented a memorial for abolition in the District,
and moved that it be printed. Mr. McDuffie, of S.C., objected to the
printing, but "expressly admitted the right of Congress to grant to the
people of the District any measures which they might deem necessary to
free themselves from the deplorable evil."--[See letter of Mr. Claiborne
of Miss. to his constituents, published in the Washington Globe, May 9,
1836.] The sentiments of Mr. Clay, of Kentucky, on the subject are well
known. In a speech before the U.S. Senate, in 1836, he declared the
power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District "unquestionable."
Messrs. Blair, of Tenn., and Chilton, Lyon, and R.M. Johnson, of Ky.,
A.H. Shepperd, of N.C., Messrs. Armstrong and Smyth, of Va., Messrs.
Dorsey, Archer, and Barney, of Md., and Johns, of Del., with numerous
others from slave states, have asserted the power of Congress to abolish
slavery in the District. In the speech of Mr. Smyth, of Va., on the
Missouri question, January 28, 1820, he says on this point: "If the
future freedom of the blacks is your real object, and not a mere
pretence, why do you not begin _here_? Within the ten miles square, you
have _undoubted power_ to exercise exclusive legislation. _Produce a
bill to emancipate the slaves in the District of Columbia_, or, if you
prefer it, to emancipate those born hereafter."

To this may be added the testimony of the present Vice President of the
United States, Hon. Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky. In a speech before
the U.S. Senate, Feb. 1, 1820, (National Inte