whom a claim shall bo presented against a fugitive from labor, shall entertain that claim and take cognizance of it. Has this been recognized by the state of Pennsylvania as the supreme law of the land?

In the year 1820, the state of Pennsylvania said, by a law of her legislature, that our magistrates should not entertain jurisdiction of such a claim, and that if they did entertain jurisdiction over it, they should be regarded as guilty of a misdemeanor in office, and that they should abide by the consequences. What change had come over the spirit of Pennsylvania since the year 1817? I ask the gentlemen on the other side, what change has come over the spirit of Pennsylvania since the year 1817? An act which was then good Pennsylvania constitutional law-shall not this convention dare to touch it? In the year 1920, your legislature said that your magistrates should not entertain jurisdiction in these cases; that your inferior magistrates alone should not be vested with the outrageous authority of passing upon the freedom of a fellow being. This, I say, was in the year 1820. The act is to be found in the last edition but one of Purdon's Digest. This law continued upon the statute book until the year 1826; and in that year was passed the law which has been referred to more than once in the course of this debate.

Well, sir, and what did your legislature do in the year 1826? They re-affirmed the law with one slight alteration. What was that? The act of 1820 prohibited the magistrates from even issuing their warrant for the arrest of a fugitive from labor. The act of 1826 allows them to issue the warrant, but compels them to make it returnable before the judge of a court. But still the act of 1826 allows them no jurisdiction or judgment, and is in direct and open hostility to the act of congress of 1793.

Now, I ask gentlemen to point out to me where, from the year 1820 to the year 1838, has the constitutionality of these Pennsylvania laws been denied? By whom have they been denied, and in what instance? Let gentlemen point me to it, if they can. Where is the magistrate to be found who has been pursued under the law of congress, for the disobedience of that law? Where is the magistrate to be found who has been punished by the state of Pennsylvania? Where is the magistrate to be found who has been impeached by the state of Pennsylvania, for disobedience of that act? And yet there is scarcely a magistrate in the state who has not refused to obey that law? Has congress legislated upon the subject further? Not at all. Have you had complaints on the floor of congress? None. No, sir, none;-the constitutionality of your own laws of 1820 and of 1826, has remained unattacked from that time to this; and yet they are, as I have said, in direct and open contravention of the act of 1793, which act is now presented to this body as an obstacle standing in the way of the adoption, on the part of this convention, of a principle to which, as I believe, the heart of no human being on this floor can object.

Having made these remarks in reference to the legislature of Pennsylvania on this subject, I will now ask my professional friends to show me, in what part of the constitution of the United States they can find power given to congress to pass the act of 1793? I ask them to turn to the clause which confers this power. We all know that the powers of the legislature of the United States are prescribed and defined, and that they

What are

are to be found in the article which treats of the legislature. those powers? I read from the eighth section of the first article: "The congress shall have power

1. To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises; to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States, &c.

2. To borrow money on the credit of the United States.

3. To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes.

4. To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States.

5. To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures.

6. To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States.

7. To establish post-offices and post roads.

8. To promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing, for limited times, to authors and inventors, the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.

9. To constitute tribunals inferior to the supreme court; to define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offences against the law of nations.

10. To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water.

11. To raise and support armies; but no appropriation of money to that use shall be made for a longer term than two years.

12. To provide and maintain a navy.

13. To make rules for the government and the regulation of the land and naval forces.

14. To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the nation, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions.

15. To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, &c. 16. To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such district (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of congress, become the seat of government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased, by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts," &c.

And then, continued Mr. S., there is another clause to which I will refer immediately. But let me be permitted, before I do so, to ask my professional friends where, in all the powers that I have enumerated, they find authority for congress to pass the act of 1793? They do not pretend that it is any where to be found among these. But the gentlemen

go a little further and think they find authority for it in the next succeeding clause to those which I have read, and which is in the following words:

"17. To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or offices thereof."

Now, I ask gentlemen, whether in that clause of the constitution of the United States which relates to a fugitive from labor, they find any such power as is claimed, vested in congress. The section of the constitution which relates to this particular class of individuals gives no power. It does, indeed, assert a principle, but, I repeat, it gives no power. It is in the following words :

"No person held to service or labor in one state under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor; but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."

There, continued Mr. S., is the assertion of the principle, but there is no donation of the power. Where the framers of the constitution intended to give a power, they understood how to do it; and in the very first section of the article from which is taken the last clause I have read, viz : article four, we find the following provison:

"Full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state;" and then the manner is prescribed in which this provision is to be carried out;—" And the congress may, by general laws, prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof." Here we have not only the principle asserted, but we see the donation of the power to the congress of the United States to carry out that provision.

In about twenty lines further, where we come to the clause which relates to fugitives from labor, and which I have just read, did not the framers of the constitution understand at that time, that if they intended that congress should possess the power to legislate, they must also make a donation to congress of the power to carry out the provision, as they had done in the first section of the same article? If they had intended that the power should be conferred, they would have made a positive donation of it by also saying, in the same way as they had done in the first section," the congress should have power by general laws, to prescribe the manner in which fugitives from justice shall be delivered up." The very fact that they have given the power in the one section and have neglected to give it in the other, is conclusive authority to my mind, that they did not intend that there should be any legislation by congress on the subject; and that they intended this provision in reference to fugitive slaves to be like many other matters which are embraced in the constitution, nothing more than the mere assertion of a principle which ought to govern the legislation of the several states of the Union, if those states conducted themselves with good faith towards the general government.

If gentlemen will take the trouble to cast their eye over the amendments.

to the constitution of the United States--to that which is termed the bill of rights-they will find many principles there asserted, merely as principles, which are not capable of being developed or enforced by the legislative action of the congress of the United States, for the enforcement of which the constitution has made no donation of power-but which remain there as solitary principles, to be carried out and enforced by the several states of the Union when they come to legislate on analogous subjects.

If then, Mr. President, the positions which I have here laid down are correct in point of fact, it is at all events doubtful, more than doubtful, as I believe, whether the act of the twelfth of February, 1793, is in accordance with the constitution of the United States-whether it is not stretching the power of congress beyond any specific donation of power to be found in that instrument. If this is so, how does the case stand? It is simply thus ;-that this provision in the constitution of the United States in reference to fugitives from labor, stands there as a principle which ought to be your guide in your state legislation. And that is all. It stands there as a principle with which you cannot come in conflict by means of your state legislation, without at the same time violating your good faith towards the confederacy. But you are left, nevertheless, with full power to legislate, and to form a constitution in accordance with the principle there laid down.

We come then to the question, does the amendment now before the convention conflict with that principle? Does the principle that your judicial officers shall call together a jury to pass upon the freedom of a man who is claimed as a slave, does that, I ask, conflict with the provision in the constitution of the United States? for that is the question with which we are dealing at this time. I agree that such a principle comes in conflict with the act of congress of 1793, and I have shown that we have conflicted with it, and that too, without being reproached for it, even since the year 1820; and I will yet show that our legislation ought to conflict with it.

But will such a provision, if inserted in the constitution of Pennsylvania, conflict with the provision in the constitution of the United States, for, as I have already said, that is the great question for us to consider. I say it will not.

"No person held to service or labor in one state under the laws thereof, escaping into another, chall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor."

This is the first clause of the provision. Now, you cannot pass a law, which will discharge such a person from service or labor. But it is not a question of discharge which is in dispute here, when a claim is made to a white or black man or a mulatto man-and I should say, woman;-for I think not twelve months have yet passed since the grasp of the claimant's hand was laid upon the person of a fair and beautiful white woman, in one of the middle or southern states-white so far as the eye could tell, but asserted by the claimant to have, Heaven knows what small mixture of African blood in her veins-and she was destined to be torn from her family and friends on the claim of being held as a slave. This, then, is not a question of discharge, but it is a question whether he is a fugitive from labor or not.

He is presumed to be free. We are bound to regard him as free until it is proved to the contrary. And, the first question is a question of fact. Is he a fugitive from labor? Is he that Charles or William, or any thing else, who did belong ten years ago, to a gentleman residing in Louisiona, or Mississippi, and who has since died? That is the question. A man comes here and lays his hand on a citizen, or a free man, or a human being, one of God's creatures-I will not quarrel about terms-and says to him " you are a slave, ten years ago you resided in the state of Mississippi. You ran away; I know you; you are the same man, and I demand that you return with me." The first question to be ascertained "is he that man?" The claimant's demand does not necessarily constitute the truth. He must produce some evidence in support of it. All that I ask is, that our judicial officers, before they pass upon the question of fact which lies at the bottom of the whole investigation, shall have the aid of twelve men. Let them have that which you would demand for

your own class.

All that I ask is, that our legislation here may be such as will secure the rights and liberties of every human being. The first clause of the article was merely prohibitory in his (Mr. S's.) opinion. The question arising might possibly be as to whether or not the fugitive claimed was, or was not of African blood-whether he was not a white man, though of very dark skin, as he might contend he was? The qusetiou he (Mr. S.) regarded as of the highest importance. He hoped therefore, that the amendment would prevail.

Mr. DARRAH, of Berks, asked for the immediate question which was sustained.

The question then recurred on agreeing to the amendment.

The yeas and nays were required by Mr. MANN and Mr. PURVIANCE, and are as follow, viz:

YEAS-Messrs. Agnew, Ayres, Baldwin, Barnitz, Biddle, Chandler, of Philadel phia, Clarke, of Beaver, Clark, of Dauphin, Cochran, Cope, Cox, Craig, Cunningham' Denny, Dickey, Earle, Farrelly, Hays, Henderson, of Allegheny, Henderson, of Dauphin' Hiester, Jenks, Kerr, Konigmacher, Long, Maclay, Merkel, Montgomery, Pennypacker, Porter, of Lancaster, Purvance, Seager, Scott, Serrill, Thomas, Young-36.

NAYS-Messrs. Banks, Barclay, Barndollar, Bedford, Bigelow, Bonham, Brown, of Northampton, Brown, of Philadelphia, Chambers, Clarke of Indiana, Cleavinger, Cline, Crain, Crawford, Crum, Cummin, Curll, Darrah, Dickerson, Dillinger, Donagan, Doran, Fleming, Foulkrod, Fry, Fuller, Gamble, Gearhart, Gilmore, Grenell, Harris, Hastings, Hayhurst, High, Hopkinson, Houpt, Hyde, Ingersoll, Keim, Kennedy, Krebs, Lyons, Magee, Mann, Martin, M'Cahen, M'Sherry, Merrill, Miller, Myers, Nevin, Overfield, Payne, Read, Riter, Ritter, Rogers, Russel, Scheetz, Sellers, Seltzer, Shellito, Smith, of Columbia, Smyth, of Centre, Snivley, Sterigere, Stickel, Sturdevant, Taggart, White, Woodward, Porter, of Northampton, President pro tem.-72.

So the question was determined in the negative.

And the report of the committee so far as relates to the tenth section, was agreed to.

The convention then proceeded to the consideration of the following section:

SECT. 11. That all courts shall be open, and every man for an injury done him in his lands, goods, person or reputation, shall have remedy by