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Show 274 APPENDIX. rightful possessors ;-to restore to their slaves that usc of their own persons, for their own benefit, which belongs to them, in virtue of the eternal law of nature and of God. 1 have only to add, that, with this full understanding of the principles of the cac;e, and under the further assurance that the slaveholders would themselves be gainers by the change, I should hope that Congress, with the vast resources of the Union at its disposal, would treat these persons with a liberality becoming the nation, and accompany the act of abolition with such a gratuity, as would render it easy and popular to all the parties concerned. The sacrifice would, in comparison, be nothing. All the states would be equally interested in making it, because it would be intended to facilitate an affair of NATIONAL justice and honor. Let the glorious act be so performed, as not to call forth n single complaint. Let no voice be heard but that of satisfaction and gratitude ! A few millions of dollars would be a small price to pay for the deliverance of the Union from the stain and dishonor of slavery. I am perfectly aware that, according to the present constitution of the United States, the general government has no power over the internal constitutions of its component republics, in their individual and separate capacity. Should Congress, however, be induced to pay its debt of justice to the slave population of the District, and of Florida, it may be hoped that considerable effect would he produced on the legislatures of the slave states, by tl1e force of example. An example of public virtue, in which the slave states themselves, as part of the Union, would have their share, could scarcely fail to operate on the more enlightened and reflecting part of their own citizens. For my own part, I entertain a firm belief that this example would be rendered efficacious, not only by the perfect harmlessness of the measure of immediate abolition, but by its beneficial results. Florida might present a useful pattern to the states in which the colored population is large in proportion to the white inhabitants; PltEE A.:\' 1) l<~lUENDLY REUAHKS. 275 and the District would, as I believe , aliio rd a proo f t o D c1 a ware, Maryland ' V. irginia' North C aro1m· a, ·r cnncsscc, and K cntucky, that they might abolish their slavery with propriety and safety. Kentucky would then no longer be a!raid to make those chmwes in her constitution, with a view to emancipation, which her ~stinguished Senator, (in contradiction to his good old character of a friend to universal freedom,) declares himself to have been lately engaged in preventing. But there is one step for the benefit of the slaves throughout the Union, which Congress appears to have a constitutional right to take, and which would operate with more than the force of mere example. While the internal institutions of the states, in their individual and separate capacity, are out of its reach, it has the power " to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and AMONG THE SEVERAL STATES, and with the Indian Tcibcs."Constitution, Sec. viii, Art. 3. Notwithstanding Henry Clay's objections, it appears to me, on calm and deliberate reflection, that Congress has tlterifm·e power to put an end to free America's chief disgrace-namely, her internal traffic in slaves. The plea which he urges against this inference from the article on commerce, is double ;-first, that this alleged traffic is not commerce at all, but is only to be regarded as the "removal" of slaves from one state to another; and, secondly, that if it were commerce, the power of the federal goverumcnt would extend only to the regulation of it. It is a power to regulate, not to annihilate; and he has declared his judgment, that it would be no more competent to Congress to prevent Maryland and Virginia from supplying the South with slaves, than to prevent Ohio from supplying the East with live stocl<. This comparison affords an affecting instance of the facility with which, under the prevailing influence of slavery, even enlightened men nrc induced to forget the impassable distinctions between human beings of a color different from their own, and the beasts which perish. llut it is, nevertheless, an apt compa- |