ct for the consideration of those
charged with the general administration of the government_." Cong. Reg.
vol. 1. p. 310, 11.

But these are only the initiatory absurdities of this "good faith
_implied_." The thirty-six senators aptly illustrate the principle, that
error not only conflicts with truth, but is generally at issue with
itself. For if it would be a violation of "good faith" to Maryland and
Virginia, for Congress to abolish slavery in the District, it would be
_equally_ a violation for Congress to do it _with the consent_, or even
at the earnest and unanimous petition of the people of the District: yet
for years it has been the southern doctrine, that if the people of the
District demand of Congress relief in this respect, it has power, as
their local legislature, to grant it, and by abolishing slavery there,
carry out the will of the citizens. But now new light has broken in! The
optics of the thirty-six have pierced the millstone with a deeper
insight, and discoveries thicken faster than they can be telegraphed!
Congress has no power, O no, not a modicum, to help the slaveholders of
the District, however loudly they may clamor for it. The southern
doctrine, that Congress is to the District a mere local Legislature to
do its pleasure, is tumbled from the genitive into the vocative! Hard
fate--and that too at the hands of those who begat it! The reasonings of
Messrs. Pinckney, Wise, and Leigh, are now found to be wholly at fault,
and the chanticleer rhetoric of Messrs. Glascock and Garland stalks
featherless and crest-fallen. For, Mr. Clay's resolution sweeps by the
board all those stereotyped common-places, as "Congress a local
Legislature," "consent of the District," "bound to consult the wishes of
the District," &c. &c., which for the last two sessions of Congress have
served to eke out scanty supplies. It declares, that _as slavery existed
in Maryland and Virginia at the time of the cession, and as it still
continues in both those states, 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