HOW FREDERICK DOUGLASS DESTROYED JOHN C.CALHOUN WITH THE POWER OF JOHN LOCKE

ARMED WITH THE CONSTITUTION, THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, AND THE FAR- REACHING GUARANTEES OF LIBERTY AND EQUALITY THAT THEY CONTAINED, DOUGLASS TOOK THE FIGHT DIRECTLY TO THE SLAVEHOLDERS.

- DAMON ROOT

ON MARCH 9, 1836, Sen. John C. Calhoun rose, not for the first time, to sing the praises of human bondage.

Two months earlier, an Ohio senator had presented a pair of petitions sent by citizens of his state “praying for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia.” Calhoun had promptly moved that the petitions be rejected. “Congress had no jurisdiction on the subject,” the South Carolina Democrat insisted, “no more in this district than the state of South Carolina.” Weeks of debate ensued.

In his March speech, Calhoun argued that Congress possessed no lawful power to limit slavery anywhere, not even within the geographical confines of Washington, D.C. He held fast to this view despite the inconvenient fact that Article I of the Constitution granted Congress the authority “to exercise exclusive legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over...the seat of the Government of the United States.” Calhoun’s principal argument was not so much legal as it was political. If the abolitionists succeeded in getting Congress to debate the merits of abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia, he reasoned, it would be only a matter of time before Congress got around to debating the merits of abolishing slavery in the states. And for Calhoun, that outcome was to be prevented at all costs.