But whatever may be the influence of this judgment as a rule to the judiciary, it cannot arrest our duty as legislators.
Charles Sumner
The Public Record
Charles Sumner was an American lawyer and statesman who represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate from 1851 until his death in 1874. Before and during the American Civil War, he was a leading American advocate for the abolition of slavery, and after the war he was a key figure in the Reconstruction era, during which he and other Radical Republicans successfully fought to end slavery and ensure basic rights for Black Americans. He continued advocating for racial equality until his death, lobbying in his final days for a civil rights bill that served as a model for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Historians credit Sumner with coining the phrase "equality before the law," which he first used as part of an early attempt to integrate Boston's public school system.
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If the opinion of the Supreme Court cover the whole ground of this Act, it ought not to control the coördinate authorities of this Government.
The Congress, the Executive, and the Court must each for itself be guided by its own opinion of the Constitution.
Each public officer who takes an oath to support the Constitution swears that he will support it as he understands it, and not as it is understood by others.
And here the single question arises, Whether the Constitution, by grant, general or special, confers upon Congress any power to legislate on the subject of fugitives from service.
As the provision in question does not appear in the catalogue of powers, and does not purport to vest any power in the Government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof, no power to legislate on this subject can be…
Nor can any such power be derived from any special grant in any other part of the Constitution; for none such exists.
The conclusion must be, that no power is delegated to Congress over the surrender of fugitives from service.
But its importance justifies more extended examination, in twofold light: first, in the history of the Convention, revealing the unmistakable intention of its members; and, secondly, in the true principles of our Political System, by which…
A person charged in any State with treason, felony, or other crime, who shall flee from justice, and be found in another State, shall, on demand of the Executive authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to…
No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the…
The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to prejudice any…
The United States shall guaranty to every State in this Union a republican form of Government, and shall protect each of them against invasion, and, on application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be…
The second contains provisions, all of which are simple compacts, and two of which were confessedly simple compacts in the old Articles of Confederation, from which, unchanged in character, they were borrowed.
Thus the proceedings of the Convention show that the founders understood the necessity of powers in certain cases, and, on consideration, jealously granted them.
The fact that the provision on this subject was adopted unanimously, while showing the little importance attached to it in the shape it finally assumed, testifies also that it could not have been regarded as a source of National power for…
They had known the perils of imbecility, discord, and confusion, protracted through the uncertain days of the Confederation, and they desired a government which should be a true bond of Union and an efficient organ of national interests at…
While the Nation within its wide orbit is supreme, the States move with equal supremacy in their own.
But, from the necessity of the case, the supremacy of each in its proper place excludes the other.
The Nation cannot exercise rights reserved to the States, nor can the States interfere with the powers of the Nation.
Slavery is a local institution, peculiar to the States, and under the guardianship of State Rights.
It is impossible, without violence to the spirit and letter of the Constitution, to claim for Congress any power to legislate either for its abolition in the States or its support anywhere.
Non-Intervention is the rule prescribed to the Nation.
But this Act is not only an unwarrantable assumption of power by the Nation, it is also an infraction of rights reserved to the States.
Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.
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