The Abolition of Slavery | Page 4

of interference by Congress and the
President for the support and protection of slavery. For the last twenty
years, the support and protection of that institution has been, to use Mr.
Adams's words at a later day, the vital and animating spirit of the
Government; and the Constitution has been interpreted and
administered as if it contained an injunction upon all men, in power and
out of power, to sustain and perpetuate slavery. Mr. Adams goes on to
state how the war power may be used:--
"But the war power of Congress over the institution of slavery in the
States is yet far more extensive. Suppose the case of a servile war,
complicated, as to some extent it is even now, with an Indian war;
suppose Congress were called to raise armies, to supply money from
the whole Union to suppress a servile insurrection: would they have no
authority to interfere with the institution of slavery? The issue of a
servile war may be disastrous; it may become necessary for the master

of the slave to recognize his emancipation by a treaty of peace; can it
for an instant be pretended that Congress, in such a contingency, would
have no authority to interfere with the institution of slavery, in any way,
in the States? Why, it would be equivalent to saying that Congress have
no constitutional authority to make peace. I suppose a more portentous
case, certainly within the bounds of possibility--I would to God I could
say, not within the bounds of probability--"
Mr. Adams here, at considerable length, portrays the danger then
existing of a war with Mexico, involving England and the European
powers, bringing hostile armies and fleets to our own Southern territory,
and inducing not only a foreign war, but an Indian, a civil, and a servile
war, and making of the Southern States "the battle-field upon which the
last great conflict will be fought between Slavery and Emancipation."
"Do you imagine (he asks) that your Congress will have no
constitutional authority to interfere with the institution of slavery, in
any way, in the States of this Confederacy? Sir, they must and will
interfere with it--perhaps to sustain it by war, perhaps to abolish it by
treaties of peace; and they will not only possess the constitutional
power so to interfere, but they will be bound in duty to do it, by the
express provisions of the Constitution itself. From the instant that your
slaveholding States become the theatre of a war, civil, servile, or
foreign, from that instant, the war powers of Congress extend to
interference with the institution of slavery, in every way by which it
can be interfered with, from a claim of indemnity for slaves taken or
destroyed, to the cession of States burdened with slavery to a foreign
power."--New York Tribune.

THE WAR IN ITS RELATION TO SLAVERY.
To THE EDITOR OF THE NEW YORK TRIBUNE:

SIR,--Our country is opening up a new page in the history of
governments. The world has never witnessed such a spontaneous
uprising of any people in support of free institutions as that now

exhibited by the citizens of our Northern States. I observe that the
vexed question of slavery still has to be met, both in the Cabinet and in
the field. It has been met by former Presidents, by former Cabinets, and
by former military officers. They have established a train of precedents
that may be well followed at this day. I write now for the purpose of
inviting attention to those principles of international law which are
regarded by publicists and jurists as proper guides in the exercise of
that despotic and almost unlimited authority called the "war power." A
synopsis of these doctrines was given by Major General Gaines, at New
Orleans, in 1838.
General Jessup had captured many fugitive slaves and Indians in
Florida, and had ordered them to be sent west of the Mississippi. At
New Orleans, they were claimed by the owners, under legal process;
but Gen. Gaines, commanding that military district, refused to deliver
them to the sheriff, and appeared in court, stating his own defence.
He declared that these people (men, women and children) were
captured in wars and held as prisoners of war: that as commander of
that military department or district, he held them subject only to the
order of the National Executive: that he could recognize no other power
in time of war, or by the laws of war, as authorized to take prisoners
from his possession.
He asserted that, in time of war, all slaves were belligerents as much as
their masters. The slave men, said he, cultivate the earth and supply
provisions. The women cook the food, nurse the wounded and sick, and
contribute to the maintenance of the war, often more