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Show 204 THE MISSOURI QUESTION. January 28.-:Mr. Smyth, of Virginia, addressed the Chair. lie said that the constitutionality of the measure proposed was the subject whieh he intended first to consider. 11he legisln. tivc power of every State is originally co-cxLen ive. Each SLate, by the Constitution, comtnits an eqnal portion of its legislative powers to Congress, and all the residue is reserved to tlte States, unless prohibited to them or to tho people. The only powers of this government are given by the Constitution. The powers granted are to be exercised over every State; and the powers reserved are retained by every State. In Pennsylvania and in Virginia, the power to legislate respecting slavery is in the legislature. In Ohio and Indiana that power i in the people, who have denied it to their legislatures. No power has been delegated to Congress to legislate on that su bjcct. The Constitution provides that, "the powers not delegated to the Uuitcd States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, arc reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." The powers not delegated being reserved to the States, respectively, are reserved to each of the States, whether new or old. Has the power to legislate over slavery been delegated to the U nitcd States? It bas not. Has it been prohibited to the States? It has not. Then it is reserved to the States rcspccti vcly, or to the people. Conscqucn tly, it is reserved to the State of Missouri, or to the people of that State. And any attempt by Congress to deprive them of this reserved power, will be unjust, tyrannical, un constitutional, nnd void. The only condition that may constitutionally be annexed to the admission of a new State into this U uiou is tllat its constitution shaH be republican. . This the Constitution authorizes us to require, and it is the only condition that is necessary. W c possess power t~ • TilE MISSOURI QUESTION. 205 make a11 needful regulations respecting the territorial property of the United SLates. Our nets in pursuance of the Constitution are paramount to the laws of any State. When we pursue our constitutional authority, we need no aid from stipulations; and when we exceed it, our acts are act'! of usurpation, aud void. It has been questioned by some, whether a constitution can be said to be republican which docs not exclude slavery. But we must understand the phrase 11 republican form of government," as the people understood it when they adopted the Constitution. We arc bound by the construction which was put upon the Constitution by the people. It would be perfidious toward them to put on the Constitution a di[crent construction from that which induced them to adopt it. The people of each of the States who adopted the Con-sti tution, except Massachusetts, owned slaves, yet they certainly considered their own constitutions to be rcpubl iean. And the federal government has not, by virtue of its power to guarantee a repnll1icn.n constitution to ench State iu the union, rcqnired a change of the constitution of any one of those States. The Constitution recognizes the right to the slave property, and it thereby appears that it was iutendcd by the Convention and by the people that that property should be secure. The representation of each State in this IIouse is proportioned by the whole number of free persons and three-fifths of the number of the slaves. In forming the Constitution, the Southern States, Virginia excepted, insisted on and outained a provision, authorizing them to import slaves for twenty years. And the Constitution provides that slaves running away " I |