OCR Text |
Show 224 DESPOTISM acts of assembly sanctioning and legalizing slavery were not "in force" on the 1st of June, 1774, nor at any other time. They never had been in force; they were contrary to the law of England, to a correspondency with which the colonial assembly was specially limited by charter. Yet it is on these void acts that the supposed legality of slavery in Maryland still continues to rest. The constitution of North Carolina, formed December 17, 1776, contains not one single word respecting slavery. 'That institution did not receive even the semblance of support derived in Virginia and Maryland from the continuation in force of the colonial acts; for no act of the colonial assembly of North Carolina had ever attempted to define who were or might be slaves. Nor was any such att~mpt made by the newly-established assembly. Slavery remained in the state of North Carolina what it had been in the colony,-a mere custom, a sheer usurpation, not sustained by even the semblance of law. Neither the first constitution of South Carolina, adopted in March, 1776, nor the second con>titution, adopted March, 1778, contains a single word attempting to legalize slavery, nor even any clause continuing in force the old colonial acts. But in February, 1777, in the interval between the two constitutions, an act of assembly revived and continued in force for five years certain of those acts, among others the act of 1740, on the subject of •lavery, of which .a synopsis was given in the preceding section; and m 1783, this act W<tS made perpetual. But the. act of 1740 was void from the beginning, by reason of ~umerous contradictions to the law of England whteh the colonial a•scmbly of South Carolina had no power to enact into law. If, then, the reviving acts of 1777 and 1783 are to have any validity, they must be considered as original acts, subjecting half the population of South Carolina to perpetual slavery. IN AMEUICA. 225 Had the assembly of South Carolina any authority to pass s~ch acts? Has it any soch authority at this m01~ent. C~m~d _the South Carolina democrats, hav1ng. a maJonty m the assembly, pass a va.liU act for _scllm~ all the \~higs into perpetual slavery? or allmhab1tants of Insh descent? or all white men not freeholders and not possessed of visible property? or all ct_t1zens of Massachusetts who mi•,.ht land on her hospitable coast? " . We mu~t always remember, in considering questions of t his sort, that not the federal government only, but _th~ state governments, also, arc governments of hmtted powers. The sovereian power .is in the people, or that portion of it posses,;';,d of political rights_; the holders of offices created by the state constitutiOns possess no au~hority not specially conferred at~ them by those constitutions. Admit, for the sake ol the argument, t!mt the sovereign people of South Carolma are om111potent, and can ai vc the character of law t? the most atroci?us wrong's; yet, surely, no st~t~ lcgtslature can excrctse any such authority, 1111• lc.s It be expressly delegated. But the constitutions ol South Carolina delegated no such power· and a power m a stat~ ~egislature to reduce, at its 'pleasure,. to the condttJon of perpetual servitude any portiOn of the inhabitants of a state, and that dot for pubhc but for private uses, is hardly to be presumed ~s one of the ordmary powers of legislation, at least tn a state whtch, 111 the solemn act of separation from the mother country, had united in declar.inu that all men are born free and equal, and that I if~ hberty, and the pursuit of happiness are inalienable rights. The Hrst constitution of Georgia, formed in Fcbrua_ ry, _1777, contains no allu~ion to slavery. The lf"gislative power of the as~embly is restricted to "such laws and regulations as may be conducive to the good order and well being of the state." Unsupported by any new authority, the system of slavery |