C. Edwards Lester, Life and public services of Charles Sumner: Born Jan. 6, 1811. Died March 11, 1874.

[143] The conclusion must be, that no power is delegated to Congress over the surrender of fugitives from service.

Thus the proceedings of the Convention show that the founders understood the necessity of powers in certain cases, and, on consideration, most jealously granted them. A closing example will strengthen the argument. Congress is expressly empowered ‘to establish an uniform rule of Naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of Bankruptcies, throughout the United States.’ Without this provision, these two subjects would have been within the control of the States, and the Nation would have had no power to establish an uniform rule thereupon. Now, instead of the existing compact on fugitives from service, it would have been easy, had any such desire prevailed, to add this case to the clause on Naturalization and Bankruptcies, and to empower Congress to establish an Uniform rule for the surrender of fugitives from service throughout the United States. Then, of course, whenever Congress undertook to exercise the power, all State control of the subject would have been superseded. The National Government would have been constituted, like Nimrod, the mighty Hunter, with power to gather the huntsmen, to halloo the pack, and to direct the chase of men, ranging at will, without regard to boundaries or jurisdictions, throughout all the States. But no person in the Convention, not one of the reckless partisans of slavery, was so audacious as to make this proposition. Had it been distinctly made, it would have been distinctly denied.

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 over Slavery. It will be remembered, that, among the members of the Convention, were Gouverneur Morris, who had said that he ‘never would concur in upholding domestic slavery;’ Elbridge Gerry, who thought ‘we ought to be careful not to give any sanction to it;’ Roger Sherman, who was opposed to any clause ‘acknowledging men to be property;’ James Madison, who ‘thought it wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea that there could be property in man;’ and Benjamin Franklin, who likened American slaveholders to Algerine corsairs. In the face of these unequivocal statements, it is absurd to suppose that they consented unanimously to any provision by which the National Government, the work of their hands, dedicated to Freedom, could be made the most offensive instrument of Slavery.

Thus much for the evidence from the history of the Convention.