lls into
constitutional tether, with which to curb congressional action. The
Constitution of the United States gives power to Congress, and takes it
away, and _it alone_. Maryland and Virginia adopted the Constitution
_before_ they ceded to the United States the territory of the District.
By their acts of cession, they abdicated their own sovereignty over the
District, and thus made room for that provided by the United States'
constitution, which sovereignty was to commence as soon as a cession of
territory by states, and its acceptance by Congress, furnished a sphere
for its exercise. That the abolition of slavery is within the sphere of
legislation, I argue,

2. FROM THE FACT, THAT SLAVERY, AS A LEGAL SYSTEM, IS THE CREATURE OF
LEGISLATION. The law, by _creating_ slavery, not only affirmed its
_existence_ to be within the sphere and under the control of
legislation, but equally, the _conditions_ and _terms_ of its existence,
and the _question_ whether or not it _should_ exist. Of course
legislation would not travel _out_ of its sphere, in abolishing what is
_within_ it, and what was recognised to be within it, by its own act.
Cannot legislatures repeal their own laws? If law can take from a man
his rights, it can give them back again. If it can say, "your body
belongs to your neighbor," it can say, "it belongs to _yourself_." If it
can annul a man's right to himself, held by express grant from his
Maker, and can create for another an _artificial_ title to him, can it
not annul the artificial title, and leave the original owner to hold
himself by his original title?

3. THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY HAS ALWAYS BEEN CONSIDERED WITHIN THE
APPROPRIATE SPHERE OF LEGISLATION. Almost every civilized nation has
abolished slavery by law. The history of legislation since the revival
of letters, is a record crowded with testimony to the universally
admitted competency of the law-making power to abolish slavery. It is so
manifestly an attribute not merely of absolute sovereignty, but even of
ordinary legislation, that the competency of a legislature to exercise
it, may well nigh be reckoned among the legal axioms of the civilized
world. Even the night of the dark ages was not dark enough to make this
invisible.

The Abolition decree of the great council of England was passed in 1102.
The memorable Irish decree, "that all the English slaves in the whole of
Ireland, be immediately emancipated and restored to their former
liberty," w