n
reported by the slavery committee, that Congress have no authority to
interfere, in any way, with slavery in any of the States of this Union.
Sir, I was not allowed to give my reasons for that vote, and a majority
of my constituents, perhaps proportionately as large as that of this
House in favor of that resolution, may and probably will disapprove my
vote against, unless my reasons for so voting should be explained to
them. I asked but five minutes of the House to give those reasons, and
was refused. I shall, therefore, take the liberty to give them now, as
they are strictly applicable to the measure now before the Committee,
and are my only justification for voting in favor of this resolution.

I return, then, to my first position, that there are two classes of
powers vested by the Constitution of the United States in their Congress
and Executive Government: the powers to be exercised in the time of
peace, and the powers incidental to war. That the powers of peace are
limited by provisions within the body of the Constitution itself, but
that the powers of war are limited and regulated only by the laws and
usages of nations. There are, indeed, powers of peace conferred upon
Congress, which also come within the scope and jurisdiction of the laws
of nations, such as the negotiation of treaties of amity and commerce,
the interchange of public ministers and consuls, and all the personal
and social intercourse between the individual inhabitants of the United
States and foreign nations, and the Indian tribes, which require the
interposition of any law. But the powers of war are all regulated by the
laws of nations, and are subject to no other limitation. It is by this
power that I am justified in voting the money of my constituents for
the immediate relief of their fellow-citizens suffering with extreme
necessity even for subsistence, by the direct consequence of an
Indian war. Upon the same principle, your consuls in foreign ports are
authorized to provide for the subsistence of seamen in distress, and
even for their passage to their own country.

And it was upon that same principle that I voted against the
resolution reported by the slavery committee, "That Congress possess no
constitutional authority to interfere, in any way, with the institution
of slavery in any of the States of this confederacy," to which
resolution most of those with whom I usually concur, and even my own
colleagues in this House, gave their assent