ith its weakness, by asking its exercise? Why mock it by demanding
impossibilities? Petitioning, according to Mr. Wise, is, in matters of
legislation, omnipotence itself; the very source of all constitutional
power; for, _asking_ Congress to do what it _cannot_ do, gives it the
power--to pray the exercise of a power that is _not, creates_ it. A
beautiful theory! Let us work it both ways. If to petition for the
exercise of a power that is _not_, creates it--to petition against the
exercise of a power that _is_, annihilates it. As southern gentlemen are
partial to summary processes, pray, sirs, try the virtue of your own
recipe on "exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever;" a better
subject for experiment and test of the prescription could not be had.
But if the petitions of the citizens of the District give Congress the
_right_ to abolish slavery, they impose the _duty_; if they confer
constitutional authority, they create constitutional obligation. If
Congress _may_ abolish because of an expression of their will, it _must_
abolish at the bidding of that will. If the people of the District are a
_source of power_ to Congress, their _expressed will_ has the force of a
constitutional provision, and has the same binding power upon the
National Legislature. To make Congress dependent on the District for
authority, is to make it a _subject_ of its authority, restraining the
exercise of its own discretion, and sinking it into a mere organ of the
District's will. We proceed to another objection.

"The southern states would not have ratified the constitution, if they
had supposed that it gave this power." It is a sufficient answer to this
objection, that the northern states would not have ratified it, if they
had supposed that it _withheld_ the power. If "suppositions" are to take
the place of the constitution--coming from both sides, they neutralize
each other. To argue a constitutional question by _guessing_ at the
"suppositions" that might have been made by the parties to it, would
find small favor in a court of law. But even a desperate shift is some
easement when sorely pushed. If this question is to be settled by
"suppositions," suppositions shall be forth coming, and that without
stint.

First, then, I affirm that the North ratified the constitution,
"supposing" that slavery had begun to wax old, and would speedily vanish
away, and especially that the abolition of the slave trade, which by the
constitution was to be