severe penalties, to import slaves into the United States after January 1st, 1808; and on April 20th, 1818, the penalties and punishments were increased, and the prohibition extended not only to importation, but generally against any citizen of the United States being concerned in the slave trade. The act of March 3d, 1819, went a step further, and authorized national armed vessels to be sent to the coast of, Africa, to stop the slave trade, so far as citizens or residents of the United States were engaged in the trade; and their vessels and effects were made liable to seizure and confiscation.

The act of May 15th, 1820, went still further, and declared that if any citizen of the United States, being of the crew of a foreign vessel, engaged in the slave trade, or any person whatever being of the crew of any vessel owned in whole or in part, or navigated for or on behalf of any citizen of the United States, should land on any foreign shore, and seize any negro or mulatto not held to service or labor by the laws of either of the States or Territories of the United States, with intent to make him a slave; or should decoy, or forcibly bring or receive such person on board such vessel, with like intent ; or should forcibly confine or detain on board any negro or mulatto, not lawfully held to service, with intent to make him a slave or should on board any such vessel offer to sell as a slave any negro or mulatto, not held to service as aforesaid; or should, on the high seas, or on any tide water, transfer or deliver over, to any other vessel, any such negro or mulatto, with intent to make him a slave, or should deliver on shore, from on board any such vessel, any negro or mulatto, with like intent, such citizen or person should be adjudged a pirate, and, on conviction, should suffer death.*

20. How far does the statute operate ?—194.

It operates only when our municipal jurisdiction might be applied, consistently with the general theory of public law, to the persons of our citizens, or to foreigners on board of American vessels.

* These Acts of Congress apply exclusively to external commerce in slaves. The internal commerce, within the United States, in slaves, is left to the control and discretion of the State governments. The northern States, which have abolished slavery, admit of no internal commerce in slaves within their respective States.

LECTURE X.

OF THE HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN UNION.

1. How and for what purpose was the government of the United States erected?-201.

It was erected by the free voice and joint will of the people of America, for their common defense and general welfare.

2. To what do its powers apply?-201.

They apply to those great interests which relate to this country in its national capacity, and which depend, for their stability and protection, on the consolidation of the Union. It is clothed with the principal attributes of political sovereignty, and it is justly deemed the guardian of our best rights, the source of our highest civil and political duties, and the sure means of national greatness.

3. When did the association of the American people into one body politic take place?-201.

While they were colonies of the British empire, and owed allegiance to the British crown.

4. What early confederacy may be considered the foundation of a series of efforts for a more extensive and more perfect union of the colonies ?-202.

That of the New England colonies in 1643.

5. After the dissolution of this earliest league, what other precedents are there of association of the people of this country for their safety?-203-208.

There are other instructive precedents: a congress of governors and commissioners from other colonies, as well as from New England, was occasionally held, to make arrangements for the more effectual protection of an interior frontier, and we have an instance of one of these assemblies at Albany, in 1722. But a much more interesting Congress was held in the year 1754, which consisted of commissioners from New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania

and Maryland, and was called at the instance of the lords commissioners for trade and the plantations, to take into consideration the best means of defending America, in case of war with France, which was then impending. The object of the English administration in calling this convention, was in reference to the treaties of friendship with the Indian tribes; but the colonies had more enlarged views. One of the colonies (Massachusetts) expressly instructed her delegates to enter into articles of union and confederation with the other colonies, for their general security in peace as well as in war. The convention unanimously resolved that a union of the colonies was absolutely necessary for their preservation.

Soon after the unfriendly attempt upon our chartered privileges, by the statute for raising a revenue in the colonies by means of a stamp duty, a congress of delegates from nine colonies was assembled in New York, in October, 1765, upon the recommendation of Massachusetts, and they digested a bill of rights, in which the sole power of taxation was declared to reside in their own colonial legislatures.

This was preparatory to a more extensive and general association of the colonies, which took place in September, 1774, and laid the foundations of our independence and permanent glory. This, the first Continental Congress, whose names and proceedings are still familiar to the present age, took into consideration the afflicted state of their country; asserted, by a number of declaratory resolutions, what they deemed to be the inalienable rights. of English freemen ;* pointed out to their constituents the system of violence which was preparing against those rights; and bound them by the most sacred of all ties, the ties of honor and of their country, to renounce commerce with Great Britain, as being the most salutary means to avert that violence and to secure those rights. These resolutions received prompt and universal obedience, and the union, being thus auspiciously formed, was continued by a succession of delegates in Congress.

*The most material of these declaratory resolutions was the one which stated that, as the colonies were not and could not properly be represented in the British Parlia ment, they were entitled "to a free and exclusive power of legislation in their sev. erál provincial legislatures in all cases of taxation and internal polity, subject only to the negative of their sovereign."

6. When was the confederacy of the thirteen colonies completed ?-208.

By the accession of Georgia, in 1775.

7. Were articles of confederation adopted ?-210, 211.

On the 11th of June, 1776, Congress undertook to digest and prepare articles of confederation. It was not until the 11th of November, 1777, that they could so far unite the discordant interests and prejudices of thirteen distinct communities, as to agree to these articles. Most of the legislatures ratified them promptly; but Delaware did not accede to them until the year 1779. Maryland at first explicitly rejected them, but assented to them on the 1st of March, 1781, upward of three years from their first promulgation; and thus the articles of confederation · received the unanimous approbation of the United States.†

8. When, and by whom, was the Constitution of the United States formed?-218, 219.

By the general convention of 1787, composed of delegates from all the States, except Rhode Island, assembled at Philadelphia. After several months of tranquil deliberation, that convention agreed on the plan of government which now forms the Constitution of the United States.

9. When was government organized under that Constitution ?-219.

On the 4th of March, 1789, the government was duly organized and put into operation under it.

* The instructions given to the delegates to the Continental Congress, by the sev eral colonial congresses, conventions and assemblies, in 1776, and prior to the declaration of independence, contained an express reservation to each colony of the sole and exclusive regulation of its own internal government, police and concerns.

The government of the Union is considered to have been revolutionary in its nature, from its first institution by the people of the colonies, in 1774, down to the first ratification of the articles of confederation, in 1781, and to have possessed powers adequate to every national emergency, and coëxtensive with the object to be obtained. Story's Com. on the Constitution, vol. i., pp. 186-191.

Though the proximate origin of the federal convention of 1787 was the proposition from Virginia, in 1786, yet the necessity of a national convention, with full authority to amend and reorganize the government, was first suggested, and fully shown, by Colonel Hamilton, in 1780, while he was an aid to General Washington, in his mas terly letter to James Duane, a member of the then Congress from New York.

10. When had the Constitution received the unanimous ratification of the respective conventions of the people in every State ?-219. In June, 1790.

LECTURE XI.

OF CONGRESS.

1. What are the constituent parts of Congress ?-222. Congress consists of a Senate and House of Representatives.

2. What is one chief object of this separation of the Legislature into two Houses, acting separately, and with coördinate powers ?-222.

To destroy the evil effects of sudden and strong excitement, and of precipitate measures, springing from passion, caprice, prejudice, personal influence and party intrigue, which have been found, by sad experience, to exercise a potent and dangerous sway in single assemblies.*

3. How is the Senate of the United States composed?-224, 225. It is composed of two senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six years, and each senator has one

vote.

4. If vacancies in the Senate happen by resignation, or otherwise, how are they filled?—225.

If they happen during the recess of the Legislature of any State, the Executive thereof may make temporary appointments, until the next meeting of the Legislature, which shall fill such vacancies.†

* Adams's Defense of the American Constitution, vol. iii., p. 502.

The Executive must wait until the vacancy has actually occurred, before he can constitutionally appoint. This was settled by the Senate of the United States, in

1825.