We do not wonder
that Webster, and all the other sound lawyers of the nation, heard such
an announcement of Constitutional hermeneutics with utter surprise and
astonishment. It was enough to astound even the veriest tyro in the law.
The Constitution--and especially by all the premises of the State-Rights
school--is a mere compact between the States; it confers no powers but
delegated and enumerated powers, and such as are indispensable to the
execution of these; and nowhere is there a clause or letter in
it extending its operation beyond the States. Even in respect to
acknowledged powers, these are inoperative until carried into effect by
a special act of Congress; they have no vitality in themselves,--they
are only dead provisions or forms till Congress has breathed into them
the breath of life; and thence to argue that of their own energy they
may leap into or embrace the Territories is to argue that a corpse may
on its own motion rise and walk.
But granting this caoutchouc property, this migratory power, in the
Constitution, the inference that it would take Slavery with it is a
still more monstrous error than the original premises. Slavery as such
is not recognized or guarantied by the Federal Constitution.
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