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, it could not be abolished in the District without a violation of 'that good faith'_, &c. But let us see where this principle of the _thirty-six_ will lead us. If "implied faith" to Maryland and Virginia _restrains_ Congress from the abolition of slavery in the District, it _requires_ Congress to do in the District what those states have done within their bounds, i.e., restrain _others_ from abolishing it. Upon the same principle Congress is _bound_, by the doctrine of Mr. Clay's resolution, to _prohibit emancipation_ within the District. There is no _stopping place_ for this plighted "faith." Congress must not only refrain from laying violent hands on slavery, _itself_, and see to it that the slaveholders themselves do not, but it is bound to keep the system up to the Maryland and Virginia standard of vigor! Again, if the good faith of Congress to Virginia and Maryland requires that slavery should exist in the District, while it exists in those states, it requires that it should exist there _as_ it exists in those states. If to abolish _every_ form of slavery in the District would violate good faith, to abolish _the_ form existing in those states, and to substitute a totally different one, would also violate it. The Congressional "good faith" is to be kept not only with _slavery_, but with the _Maryland and Virginia systems_ of slavery. The faith of those states not being in the preservation of _a_ system, but of _their_ system; otherwise Congress, instead of _sustaining_, would counteract their policy--principles would be brought into action there conflicting with their system, and thus the true spirit of the "implied" pledge would be violated. On this principle, so long as slaves are "chattels personal" in Virginia and Maryland, Congress could not make them _real estate_, inseparable from the soil, as in Louisiana; nor could it permit slaves to read, nor to worship God according to conscience; nor could it grant them trial by jury, nor legalize marriage; nor require the master to give sufficient food and clothing; nor prohibit the violent sundering of families--because such provisions would conflict with the existing slave laws of Virginia and Maryland, and thus violate the "good faith implied," &c. So the principle of the resolution binds Congress in all these particulars: 1st. Not to abolish slavery in the District _until_ Virginia and Maryland abolish. 2d. Not to abolish any _part_ of it that exists in those s
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