NCE, 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:

"Be it enacted by the General Assembly, That a tract of country, not
exceeding ten miles square, or any lesser quantity, to be located within
the limits of the State, and in any part thereof, as Congress may, by
law, direct, shall be, and the same is hereby for ever ceded and
relinquished to the Congress and Government of the United States, in
full and absolute right, and exclusive jurisdiction, as well of soil, as
of persons residing or to reside thereon, pursuant to the tenor and
effect of the eighth section of the first article of the government of
the constitution of th