the Virginia part. Though it
might not always be able to run at the bidding of both _at once_,
especially in different directions, yet if it obeyed orders cheerfully,
and "kept in its place," according to its "good faith implied,"
impossibilities might not be rigidly exacted. True, we have the highest
sanction for the maxim that no _man_ can serve two masters--but if
"corporations have no souls," analogy would absolve Congress on that
score, or at most give it only a _very small soul_--not large enough to
be at all in the way, as an exception to the universal rule laid down in
the maxim!

In following out the absurdities of this "implied good faith," it will
be seen at once that the doctrine of Mr. Clay's Resolution extends to
_all the subjects of legislation_ existing in Maryland and Virginia,
which exist also within the District. Every system, "institution," law,
and established usage there, is placed beyond Congressional control
equally with slavery, and by the same "implied faith." The abolition of
the lottery system in the District as an immorality, was a flagrant
breach of this "good faith" to Maryland and Virginia, as the system
"still continued in those states." So to abolish imprisonment for debt,
or capital punishment, to remodel the bank system, the power of
corporations, the militia law, laws of limitation, &c., in the District,
_unless Virginia and Maryland took the lead,_ would violate the "good
faith implied in the cession."

That in the acts of cession no such "good faith" was "implied" by
Virginia and Maryland as is claimed in the Resolution, we argue from the
fact, that in 1784 Virginia ceded to the United States all her
north-west territory, with the special proviso that her citizens
inhabiting that territory should "have their _possessions_ and _titles_
confirmed to them, and be _protected_ in the enjoyment of their _rights_
and liberties." (See Journals of Congress, vol. 9, p. 63.) The cession
was made in the form of a deed, and signed by Thomas Jefferson, Samuel
Hardy, Arthur Lee, and James Munroe. Many of these inhabitants _held
slaves._ Three years after the cession, the Virginia delegation in
Congress _proposed_ the passage of an ordinance which should abolish
slavery, in that territory, and declare that it should never thereafter
exist there. All the members of Congress from Virginia and Maryland
voted for this ordinance. Suppose some member of Congress had during the
passage of the ordinance