or good policy, to grant unlimited, unbounded authority?” Mr. Madison said in reply:  “I did conceive that the clause under consideration was one of those parts which would speak its own praise.  When any power is given, its delegation necessarily involves authority to make laws to execute it. * * * * The powers which are found necessary to be given, are therefore delegated generally, and particular and minute specification is left to the legislature. * * * It is not within the limits of human capacity to delineate on paper all those particular cases and circumstances, in which legislation by the general legislature would be necessary.”  Governor Randolph said:  “Holland has no ten miles square, but she has the Hague where the deputies of the States assemble.  But the influence which it has given the province of Holland, to have the seat of government within its territory, subject in some respects to its control, has been injurious to the other provinces.  The wisdom of the Convention is therefore manifest in granting to Congress exclusive jurisdiction over the place of their session.” [Deb.  Va.  Con., p. 320.] In the forty-third number of the “Federalist,” Mr. Madison says:  “The indispensable necessity of complete authority at the seat of government, carries its own evidence with it.”

Finally, that the grant in question is to be interpreted according to the obvious import of its terms, is proved by the fact, that Virginia proposed an amendment to the United States’ Constitution at the time of its adoption, providing that this clause “should be so construed as to give power only over the police and good government of said District,” which amendment was rejected.

The former part of the clause under consideration, “Congress shall have power to exercise exclusive legislation,” gives sole jurisdiction, and the latter part, “in all cases whatsoever,” defines the extent of it.  Since, then, Congress is the sole legislature within the District, and since its power is limited only by the checks common to all legislatures, it follows that what the law-making power is intrinsically competent to do any where, Congress is competent to do in the District of Columbia.  Having disposed of preliminaries, we proceed to state and argue the real question at issue.

IS THE LAW-MAKING POWER COMPETENT TO ABOLISH SLAVERY WHEN NOT RESTRICTED IN THAT PARTICULAR BY CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS—­or, IS THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY WITHIN THE APPROPRIATE SPHERE OF LEGISLATION?