mere matter of favor could justify the Senate in going on with these partial grants, he must oppose them. And until a proper disposition should be manifested towards the old States, as well as the new ones, he should vote against it. Mr. CLAY presumed there was no intention, on the part of the Senate, to pass this bill, either as originally reported or in any shape the amendments might present it; and, presuming that it would be rejected on its third reading, he thought it would prevent delay to take the question as to the final disposition of it at once. therefore moved that it be indefinitely postponed. He Mr. BENTON said he had been treated in a manner which outraged all the rules and the courtesies of parliamentary proceeding; his own bill had been taken away from him and put into another, which he detested, and against which he voted, and thus voted against his own. He had borne this treatment for years, but he should bear it no longer without availing himself of every motion and of every effort known to the rules of the House to correct the wrong which had been done him. Four or five years ago he brought in this bill to grant to Missouri 500,000 acres of land, for the purpose of internal improvement. It was only half the quantity which had been granted to Ohio for similar purposes. The bill had been favorably considered by the Senate, and was ordered to a third reading. In this state the Senator from Kentucky [Mr. CLAY] had got it incorporated in his distribution bill, where he (Mr. B.) had to vote against it, and where it had shared the fate of that bill, being vetoed with it. It was now in the same distribution bill, and must share its fate a second time, be that fate what it may. Certainly he (Mr. B.) would vote against it for ever in that bill; and it was nearly certain, looking to the President's messages, that it would be vetoed again, even if it passed Congress. Mr. B. said his bill had a right to stand or fall upon its own merits. It ought not to be subjected to the fate of the distribution bill, and would have none of the main objections of that bill to encounter. It had repeatedly received the vote of majorities while in that bill, and lie presumed would receive the vote of majorities again. The gentleman from Kentucky nearest to him [Mr. CRITTENDEN] might consistently vote against it, as he intimated an intention to do, for he had never voted for it in the other bill; but the case was different with the Senaator from Ohio, [Mr. EwING;] he had voted for it often in the distribution bill, and might vote against it by itself, and justify himself as he could for the contradiction. It was perfectly immaterial to him (Mr. B.) what the plea of justification was. He knew that the grant was either right or wrong; if wrong, it ought not to be voted for in the distribution bill; if right, it ought not to be rejected in its own bill. The whole proceedings, he said, had been not only a violation of parliamentary rules and proprieties in respect to him, but an injury to the State of Missouri, and besides that, an insult to her. That State wished to have the grant; she was entitled to it, upon the same principle that Ohio had received a million of acres, Alabama 400,000, and Illinois and Indiana nearly half a million each. This she was entitled to, and the Legislature of the State had passed resolutions claiming the grant, and had also passed resolutions against the land distribution bill. In this State of the question, it was not only a wrong, but it was an insult to the State to take the grant which she had asked for, and put it into a bill which had received a veto, and would almost certainly receive it again, and against which she had instructed her delegation to vote, and thus say to her, in effect, that she should not have the grant she applied for, unless she would take also what she objected to; and it was laying her Senators under the necessity of voting against a grant VOL. XII.-71 [SENATE. Another feature of this case Mr. B. would mention. His bill had been buried in the Land Committee of 1833-34, for seven months. He brought it in as soon as Congress met; it went to the Public Land Committee, and it remained there till the end of the session in June, and was then returned among the unconsidered business of the committee. [Here Mr. B. inquired of the Secretary who composed that committee? The Secretary gave him the list of the names. He read some of them--Mr. Poindexter, Mr. Clay, Mr. McKean, &c.] He said that a member of the committee told him he had never heard of it in committee; and when at the end of the session his bill was returned among the unconsidered business of the committee, he had called the attention of the Senate to the fact, by way of showing how his bill had been treated, and he had also sent an attestation of the fact to the Governor of the State, to be shown to the members of the General Assembly. Thus had he been treated, and not himself only, but the State whose Senator he was, and whose interests were thus trampled upon. For several years he had annually brought in this bill. It was now before the Senate again, and in a duplicate form. It was in a bill by itself, and it was also in the land distribution bill. In the latter bill it could never pass; in the bill by itself it might pass, and certainly would, unless the spectacle was exhibited of those refusing to vote for it in one bill and voting for it in another. The Senator from Ohio [Mr. EWING] intended to exhibit that spectacle for one, but he knew of no others, and presumed that the majority of those who voted for it in one bill would do it in the other; as right was right, whether it was found in this bill or in that of the Senator from Kentucky, [Mr. CLAY.] Mr. B. said that six of the new States were interested in the bill. They all claimed grants on the same principle that Ohio has obtained hers. Ohio had received a million and six thousand acres for internal improvement. This quantity was stated to him in writing by the late Commissioner of the Land Office, (Mr. Hayward.) Miss uri, Mississippi, and Louisiana, had received nothing; Alabama, Indiana, and Illinois, had received less than half a million each; and his bill proposed that each of these six States should receive half as much as Ohio. The application was moderate, for they might well demand the same quantity that Ohio had received. All of them had the same interest in the issue of his motion; for all these grants had been seized upon, and crammed into the distribution bill, to swell the mass of temptation which that bill held out; they had all been vetoed in that bill, and would, judging from the President's messages, be vetoed again, if kept in it. They should all go in a bill by themselves. They were in a bill by themselves before they were ingulphed in the maw of the distribution bill. They had been in that maw about as many years as Jonah was days in the whale's belly; and he now meant to get them out of it; and must appeal to the justice of the Senate-it was the first time he had ever made such an appeal-he must appeal to their justice to restore him his bill, and let it stand or fall upon its own merits. Mr. EWING, of Ohio, said there was a slight difference between the Senator from Missouri, [Mr. BENTON,] and himself. He had combined the amount of lands given to Ohio with grants for colleges and salt reservations. SENATE.] Duties on Wines-Incendiary Publications. [Mr. BENTON meant grants for internal improvements alone.] Then, said Mr. E., he is mistaken as to the amount. He [Mr. BENTON] asked whether we intend to vote in good faith. I do not, said Mr. E., vote in good faith or bad faith for any particular State. I vote in good faith for what I believe to be the benefit of all the States. Mr. PORTER would vote for both the amendments and the bill with the same readiness that he would vote for the general land bill, as an act of justice to Louisiana and all the new States. He should also vote for the general land bill, for the surplus revenue had so increased that he saw no other way of getting rid of it on fair principles. He should vote for the grant to the State of Missouri with other new States, as a general clause. He thought the Senator from Missouri [Mr. BENTON] entirely too sensitive about the course his bill had taken; there might be good reasons why Senators from old States refuse to vote for it now, and were willing to vote for it in the general land bill. Mr. CALHOUN inquired whether the principles contained in this bill were not contained in the bill of the same nature introduced by the Senator from Mississippi. Mr. WALKER replied that the equalising principle was. Mr. CALHOUN said that the bill introduced by the Senator from Mississippi had been referred to a select committee, and they ought at least to wait for the report of that committee, before they proceeded further with this bill. He would move, therefore, to lay it on the table. The question was then taken on this motion, and it was decided in the affirmative: Yeas 26, nays 8, as follows: YEAS-Messrs. Brown, Calhoun, Clay, Crittenden, Cuthbert, Davis, Ewing of Ohio, Golsborough, Grundy, Hendricks, Hill, Hubbard, Kent, King of Alabama, King of Georgia, Knight, McKean, Naudain, Niles, Prentiss, Preston, Robbins, Shepley, Swift, Tomlinson, White--26. NAYS-Messrs. Benton, Black, Linn, Nicholas, Porter, Robinson, Ruggles, Walker-8. On motion of Mr. WHITE, the Senate then proceeded to the consideration of executive business; after which it adjourned to Monday. MONDAY, APRIL 11. DUTIES ON WINES. Mr. DAVIS, from the Committee on Commerce, reported a bill to suspend so much of the act imposing discriminating duties as applies to the Portuguese islands, and to reduce the duties on wines. Mr. DAVIS made a motion that the bill should be passed through its first and second reading at this time, giving, as the reason which operated on him to submit the proposition, the fact that it was extremely desirable to cherish the trade with Portugal, who took from us a large quantity of our lumber, staves, fish, cotton, flour, and tobacco. The President had been urged to abolish the discriminating duties in this case, by proclamation, and thus to put our trade with Portugal on the same footing with that of Great Britain; and this arrangement with Portugal ought to have been made long ago. The duties on wines might be diminished one half without producing any injury to the revenue, any encroachment on the principles of the compromise act, or any discouragement to our industry. It was unanimously recommended by the committee, and he hoped would be unanimously agreed to by the Senate. The bill was read a first time, and considered as in Committee of the Whole; when, On motion of Mr. KNIGHT, the bill was so amended [APRIL 11, 1836. as to make the reduction take date from and after the "30th day of June," instead of "1st day of July.” The bill was then ordered to be engrossed for a third reading. WISCONSIN TERRITORY. The Senate proceeded to consider the amendments made by the House of Representatives to the bill to establish a territorial Government in Wisconsin. Mr. CRITTENDEN moved to disagree to the first amendment of the House, which reduces the salary of the Governor, and, after some brief remarks from Mr. CLAYTON, Mr. KING of Alabama, Mr. GRUNDY, and Mr. BENTON, the motion was agreed to: Yeas 18, nays 11. Mr. EWING, of Ohio, moved to amend the third amendment of the House, which appropriates $20,000 for the public buildings, by striking out twenty, and inserting ten, but the amendment was negatived. The other amendments of the House were then concurred in. INCENDIARY PUBLICATIONS. The Senate then proceeded to consider the special order, being the bill prohibiting deputy postmasters from receiving or transmitting through the mail, to any State, Territory, or District, certain papers therein mentioned, the circulation of which, by the laws of said State, Territory, or District, may be prohibited, and for other purposes. Mr. KING, of Georgia, rose and said he had intended to say something upon the subject before the question was taken on engrossing the bill, and, as the Senator from Carolina so wished it, he would as soon say it then as at any other time. He should support and vote for the bill; and if the chairman of the committee had been content to report the bill without his reasons for it, no discussion would have arisen between them on the subject of the bill or the bill itself. But as his support of the bill might be taken as an implied assent to the principles of the report, he must say enough to set himself right on that point. He said before and since the President had recommended the subject to the consideration of Congress, he had thought the subject was clear of all constitutional difficulties. He did not recollect to have heard the constitutional power of Congress over the subject seriously doubted until the President had made reference to the subject in his message. That there were difficulties in the details of legislation necessary to fasten upon the mischief complained of, had been anticipated by many. But (Mr. K. said) positions had been assumed and principles insisted upon by the Senator from Carolina, not only inconsistent with the bill reported, but, he thought, inconsistent with the existence of the Government itself, and which, if established and carried into practice, must hastily end in its dissolution. He did not believe the Government could stand a twelvemonth if we were to establish as a fundamental principle that principle of permanent necessity for a collision between the State and general Governments which he thought might be deduced from the principles of the Senator from Carolina, as laid down in his report. What were these positions? Why, it was insisted that Congress had no power so to modify its laws under the Post Office power as to refuse to transmit matter intended to abolish slavery in the slaveholding States; because, 1st. Such legislation would abridge the freedom of the press; and 2d. Because such legislation by Congress would assume a power fatal to the rights of the States. He thought the second objection the most extraordinary of the two, but would notice them in the order in which they had been treated in the report. He said it was right, however, in the first place, upon all constitutional questions, for a correct understanding of the subject, that we should consider the extent of the powers granted to this Government; and then make an analysis or classification of the powers, in reference to the object of the grant. We had then only to establish a reasonable and proper connexion between the objects of the grant and the objects of the legislation proposed, and we had the power required. It would be admitted that the Government of the Union was a Government of limited powers. It was established by the people of the United States, in part, and principally for the control and enjoyment of such rights and interests as experience had taught them they could best enjoy in common. But whilst established in part for this purpose, it was, to a certain extent, as much the object of the national association to add additional securities to the independent enjoyment of the separate rights of the States, as such, as it was to concentrate the powers of the whole for certain national purposes. Under the State Governments, the people enjoyed their nearest and dearest rights. The whole system of their domestic economy was protected and regulated under these jurisdictions. They surrendered none of these rights, of a purely local character, by the adop tion of the constitution; but, on the contrary, they added additional securities to them by force and virtue of the national association. There were many instances of this; but the most appropriate, and enough for his purpose, was the right of the slaveholder to reclaim his fugitive slave on every foot of the territory of the Union. was a State right not previously possessed, and which the slaveholders acquired by virtue of the constitution itself; and the slaveholder had a constitutional right to the whole power, moral and physical, of this Government to enforce it. He referred to this only to show that, under our system, the action of the general Government should have reference to State rights, when those rights were recognised in the constitution, and secured by it. This It was unnecessary (Mr. K. said) to refer to the powers of a purely national character; suffice it to say, that both Governments, State and federal, were established by the people for their own purposes. These purposes were not inconsistent with each other, and never could be made so under a correct administration of both Governments. And it was as much our duty, in legislating under the constitution, to legislate in reference to the local and peculiar rights of the States, when those rights were recognised in the constitution itself, and by the constitution secured to the States, as it was so to legislate as to secure the objects of the Government when purely national. The constitution of the United States, he said, like every other instrument, should be taken as a whole, and so construed as to make every clause effectual, and give consistency to all its parts, and this without bringing the action of the Government under one clause into collision with its action under another. The President, then, had recommended Congress to pass a law so regulating the action of the Government under the Post Office power as to withhold the agency of the mail in the transmission of certain matter, the acknowledged object and evident design of which was the destruction of an interest recognised in the constitution, and by the constitution secured to the States. Under what classification of powers did such legislation fall? Mr. Madison, in his classification of powers granted to the general Government, had spoken first of the powers to secure the country against foreign danger; [SENATE. secondly, for the regulation of foreign commerce; and, thirdly, of the important and extensive class "for the maintenance of harmony, and a proper intercourse among the States." What (inquired Mr. K.) are the specific powers making up this class? It was unnecessary to enumerate all of them; the most obvious would occur to all. They were also enumerated by Mr. Madison; and besides the power to regulate commerce among the several States, and others, was to be found the power "to establish post offices and post roads." The power "to establish post offices and post roads" was then a power belonging to that class given to the Government for the maintenance of harmony, and a proper intercourse among the States." It was, of course, auxiliary to every other power belonging to this class, but could not be made inconsistent with any of them. The power was granted in a general and simple form; it was not stated what we should carry by mail, or what we should not carry. This was left to be limited only by the purposes of the grant, and to be reconciled with the other provisions of the constitution. With this limitation, like every other general grant, it was submitted to the discretion of Congress, who have power “to pass all laws necessary and proper to carry into execution the powers granted" in the constitution. Mr. K. then asked if the existing laws, which authorized the transmission by mail of abolition papers from the non-slaveholding to the slaveholding States, were laws "necessary and proper" for the maintenance of harmony, and a proper intercourse among the States?" Were they necessary and proper for the preservation of an interest they were intended and obviously calculated to destroy? No; they were unnecessary and improper for this or any other constitutional purpose. And yet it was said by the Senator from Carolina that we had no independent power to modify or repeal them; we were under the strange necessity of doing wrong, until the States might meet, and legislate, and compel us to do right; thereby creating a fundamental necessity for a collision between the two Governments. Why, (said Mr. K.,) so far from being compelled to carry these abolition papers, in the spirit of the constitution we have no power to carry them. This resulted (he said) from the acknowledged right of the States to stop them. All admitted this right in the States; and upon what principle was it? It was simply on the principle that the circulation of such matter was not necessary for national purposes, and was inconsistent with the rights which belonged exclusively to the slaveholding States. If we had a right to send them, the States had no right to stop them. In sending these papers by our laws, we assumed the right to send them. This assumption was either right, or it was wrong. If right, the States had no right to interfere with us; and if wrong, we should give them no occasion to do so. Rights (he said) might be co-existent and concurrent; but they could never be co-existent and inconsistent. Having no right, then, to use any means inconsistent with the acknowledged rights of the States, we could not be compelled to do so through the Post Office power, which was limited by the purposes of the grant, and should be carried into effect by laws "necessary and proper" to effect the purposes for which the power was granted, and not to effect purposes for which the power was not granted. If these positions were true, it was plain that Congress had a right to regulate its own action under its own power, with a due regard to those rights of the States recognised in the constitution, and it was the duty of Congress to do so. Mr. K., after laying down these general principles, proceeded to notice the specific objections. The first (he said) was, that any modification of our laws, preventing the circulation through the mail of abolition matter, would abridge the freedom of the press, And SENATE.] Incendiary Publications. [APRIL 11, 1836. Mr. K. then returned to the first position in the report, and asked, what was the freedom of the press? How was it secured? For what purposes, and to whom? The security provided for the freedom of the press was, by a restriction on the national Legislature, intended to prevent any active interference with that right, as it existed in the States at the time the constitution was adopted. The provision was only declaratory of a pre-existing right, accompanied by an engagement not to disturb it. That freedom consisted in the right to print and publish whatever might be permitted by the laws of the State, whose citizens insisted upon the right. The privilege was a reserved one, and could not be disturbed within the jurisdictional limits of any State, by any active interference of the general Government whatever. But as the right was a State right, as the privilege was a local one, (and so acknowledged in the report,) it could not be extended by expression or implication, or by State or national agency, unless some paramount constitutional purpose required it. Did any such paramount constitutional purpose require the extension here? He thought not. The right, like every other constitutional right, must be reconciled with other con where did gentlemen, under this sacred right of the freedom of the press, obtain for the abolitionists the right to use this Government as an involuntary instrument for the abolition of slavery in the slaveholding States? They claimed it under the amendment of the constitution which provides that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Now, (said Mr. K.,) those who have been here during the session must feel somewhat astonished at the awful respect which is paid by the Senator from Carolina to one right secured by this amendment, when they recollect the unceremonious manner in which he treated another, expressly secured in the same article. It would be seen (he said) that this was the same article in which the right of petition was expressly secured to the worst as well as the best citizens, and to petition for the worst as well as the best objects. And yet the Senator had refused to receive petitions on the subject of slavery, and had agitated the country for months, by making war on a parcel of women and children, disappointed old maids, and boarding-stitutional rights secured to the citizen in the same inschool misses; the former class having perhaps lost all sympathies with the world, and the latter not having learnt any thing about it. These petitioners, such as they were, were not permitted, under an express right, to ask Congress in its discretion to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, whilst the same Senator, under the same clause, looked beyond the constitution for a remote implication, to secure to the same persons the active and efficient agency of the Government to abolish slavery in all the slaveholding States. He said, although the Senator had been long a politician, he seemed very subject to the emotion of astonishment during the present session, and on one or two occasions had expressed astonishment at him, (Mr. K.) As for himself, however, only a few years in politics, he had already ceased to become astonished at any thing, or he should be amazed at the different positions assumed by the Senator on this same amendment of the constitution. By petitioning Congress (he said) the petitioners could do no harm, unless Congress did it for them. They gave us notice of their existence and designs in the least dangerous way, unless we made it dangerous. No one ever intimated that to refuse to receive these petitions would diminish the number of abolitionists; on the contrary, it was well known it would increase them; and whilst they were in the country plotting mischief, he wished to know who they were, where they were, and what were their views and designs. All insisted this was important information for the South; and as a southern man, if he had his wishes, he would like for every abolitionist, man, woman, and child, in the United States, to petition Congress on the subject, if he could only be assured that their petitions would be prudently treated. These petitions not only gave us the sentiments and designs of these people, and showed us where they lived, but kept the South advised of the feelings of Congress on the subject, which was all-important to that section of country. With such admonition, the South could never be taken by surprise. In every view of the subject, even on the score of expediency, the more he had reflected the better was he satisfied with the course he had proposed on the right of petition. Something was gained by receiving, and certainly nothing lost by it. He was led to this short digression, (he said,) upon a motion long since disposed of, in consequence of the subject having been revived by the Senator, [Mr. CALHOUN,] who had again cast censure on those who had voted against his motion not to receive petitions. strument. Most of the States, he believed, had similar How, then, did we abridge the freedom of the press by withholding the national agency from all means calculated to abolish slavery in the slaveholding States, when the national Government had no power for this purpose, either expressed or implied? We do not, said he, propose to prevent the printing and publishing, or even the circulation, of any matter permitted by the laws of the respective States within the limits of the States where printed and published; and as the right was acknowledged to be a State right, it could not be further insisted on, except for purposes purely national, and therefore not conflicting with the rights of other States. The power was given to keep up a social, friendly, and commercial intercourse among the people of the States; and, so far as it extended, an intercourse among the people of the different States; it was the creature of the constitution, must be confined to its objects, and could not be used to destroy an interest which we had no right to touch, and which, on the contrary, by the constitution, we were bound to secure. Further, Mr. K. said, it was admitted that, if the freedom of the press was infringed by such modification of our laws as proposed by the President, it was done by implication. Was there, then, any implied right in the citizen to claim an involuntary agency of the general Government in the circulation of any matter beyond the limits of his own State, which by the laws of that State might be there printed and published? If so, from what source was such a right derived? It could only attach, as a necessary and proper means, to some constitutional end. What was that constitutional end here? The Senator from South Carolina insisted that the right to print and publish implied the right to circulate; and, as the Post Office power was surrendered to the general Government, there was an implied right to claim the agency of that Government in the circulation of whatever a State might permit to be printed and published. As the right to print and publish was acknowledged by the Senator to be a local and State right, it was a little strange how the incident could be extended beyond the principal power. The truth was, that the Post Office power was itself a distinct power, and could only be called on to execute its own proper purposes, or by implication as necessary and proper to some other constitutional end. And he again asked, what was that constitutional end here? The abolition of slavery in the slaveholding States? It could be none other. And was that the constitutional end which so irresistibly drew after it, as an incident, the involuntary agency of the Government in the circulation of matter calculated to abolish slavery in the slaveholding States? When the question of connexion between means and ends was proposed to us, we must decide it; and we here saw plainly an unconstitutional mean insisted on because it proposed an unconstitutional end. But the Senator from South Carolina most strongly insisted, he said, that an implied right, claimed for an unconstitutional purpose, should defeat the exercise of an express power when that exercise was proposed for a purpose acknowledged to be constitutional. He would ask the Senator how it was possible to abridge a liberty of the citizen, by denying to him the means of doing that which he had not liberty to do. He thought, then, that it was perfectly plain that the freedom of the press could not, by implication, be made to control an expressly delegated power, for purposes inconsistent with the objects of that power and the general purposes of the national compact. It could not, in this case, be made the cloak for any such unauthorized mischief as that which was placed under its protection. Mr. K. said the construction put upon another law* had been referred to in the report as authority; but it was plain there was no analogy whatever; for in that Jaw printing and publication were directly acted on within the States, and that by the assumption of a power nowhere granted. Unauthorized power was assumed to violate rights expressly reserved to the States, whilst here we exercise a power expressly granted in such way as to respect the rights of the States. K. took leave of this branch of the subject, and proceeded to notice the second ground; that such a regulation would assert a power fatal to the rights of the States. Mr. Mr. K. said that he had already stated that he thought this a most extraordinary position; and, when considered in reference to the subject, he still thought so: the Sena. tor had stated that it was perfectly plain that if we could say what we could not carry, we might say what we would carry, and enforce its circulation. This might be very plain to the chairman of the committee, but it Alien and sedition law. [SENATE was very far from being plain to him, (Mr. K.) Propo sitions, the identity of which depended on easy conditions, were very convenient and popular with popular reasoners, from the great latitude which they gave to the speaker, and the inexhaustible material for argument which they usually afford. By the use of them the orator could frequently let himself off into a train of easy reasoning, without any assignable limitation whatever. He had the advantages of the theory of the Northern diver, (whose name he had forgotten,) whose theory was, that it was just as easy to do one thing as another. He believed, however, that he had furnished a practical refutation of his own theory in the end, for he had found it perfectly easy to leap down from an elevation of one hundred feet into a gulf of water below, but did not find it so easy to leap back again. The error of the chairman of the committee, he said, (if it be one, and he believed it to be, with all due respect,) seemed to him to have arisen from a misapprehension of the nature of the question he was deciding. The question was one on the affirmation of power under a limited constitution. We could run with the current of constitutional authority, but we could not run against it; and the Senator might just as well say that, if a man had power to swim down the falls of Niagara, it was perfectly plain that he had power to swim up them. We never asserted a right to exceed a limited power by acting strictly within it. The army (he said) was confided to the general Government; but a protection was also provided to the citizen in the constitution against the quartering of soldiers on him in time of peace. According to the doctrine of the report, if we were to pass a law to make that protection effi cient, and as a matter of discipline punish the officer for a violation of it, we would thereby assert the power to violate the right at pleasure in face of the constitution. As a further illustration of the doctrine of the report, he instanced the proprietor of a freehold, who had full authority on his own estate, but had no power to cross the line and trespass on the land of his neighbor; and yet, if he wished to respect his neighbor's rights, and forbid his servants to commit trespasses, and punished their disobedience, he thereby, according to this doctrine, asserted a right to trespass on his neighbor at pleasure. The plain difference in all these cases (Mr. K. said) was, that we had power in the one case and had no power in the other. The power here was limited by the purposes for which it was to be exercised; we could go with the constitution, but could not go against it. We could act within our constitutional limits, but could not go beyond them. Whether we could enforce the circulation of a paper through the mail in the slaveholding States would depend on its character. If it were a commercial letter, a bill of exchange, a bill of lading, a war despatch, or any other paper fairly connected with the granted powers and social relations, as established by the constitution, and not inconsistent with the reserved rights of the States, in that case its circulation might be enforced. If of a different character, it could not be enforced, and the States whose acknowledged rights might be affected could interfere and arrest the circulation. Each Government should act within its own powers, and, in doing so, assert no right to go beyond them. But (Mr. K. said) it was a waste of time to dwell longer upon this report, as the bill reported by the chairman of the committee was a practical refutation of every principle laid down in the report up to that part of it which recommended the bill. The bill proposed to Congress to do that which the report said Congress has no power to do. The position assumed in the report was, that the amended article before referred to deprived Congress |