ongress may abolish slavery in the
District of Columbia--may abolish the slave trade between the States;
that is, it may prohibit their being carried out of the State in which
they are--and prohibit it in all the territories, Florida among them.
They think_, NOT WITHOUT STRONG REASONS, _that the power of Congress
extends to all of these subjects_."

In another letter, the same correspondent says:

"_The fact is, it is vain to attempt_, AS THE CONSTITUTION IS NOW, _to
keep the question of slavery out of the halls of Congress_,--until, by
some decisive action, WE COMPEL SILENCE, or _alter the constitution_,
agitation and insult is our eternal fate in the confederacy."

OBJECTIONS TO THE FOREGOING CONCLUSIONS CONSIDERED.

We now proceed to notice briefly the main arguments that have been
employed in Congress and elsewhere against the power of Congress to
abolish slavery in the District. One of the most plausible, is that "the
conditions on which Maryland and Virginia ceded the District to the
United States, would be violated, if Congress should abolish slavery
there." The reply to this is, that Congress had no power to _accept_ a
cession coupled with conditions restricting the power given it by the
constitution. Nothing short of a convention of the states, and an
alteration of the constitution, abridging its grant of power, could have
empowered Congress to accept a territory on any other conditions than
that of exercising "exclusive legislation, in all cases whatsoever,"
over it.

To show the futility of the objection, here follow the acts of cession.
The cession of Maryland was made in November, 1788, and is as follows:
"An act to cede to Congress a district of ten miles square in this state
for the seat of the government of the United States."

"Be it enacted, by the General Assembly of Maryland, that the
representatives of this state in the House of Representatives of the
Congress of the United States, appointed to assemble at New-York, on the
first Wednesday of March next, be, and they are hereby authorized and
required on the behalf of this state, to cede to the Congress of the
United States, any district in this state, not exceeding ten miles
square, which the Congress may fix upon, and accept for the seat of
government of the United States." Laws of Maryland, vol. 2, chap. 46.

The cession from Virginia was made by act of the Legislature of that
State on the 3d of December, 1788, in the following words: