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there would be found the evidence of his guilt; there the laws which
he had voilated would be best understood, nad most perfectly admin-
nistered; and above all, the character of his accusers more properly
appreciated.

In the opinion of your committee the next position assumed by the
governor of New York is as untenable as the first, to wit: That the
second section of the fourth article applies only to those acts which,
if committed within the jursidiction of the state in which the person
accused is found, would be treasonable, felonious, or criminal by the
laws of that state. If the construction contended for by the governor
of New York be the proper one, then the provision in the constitution
was unnecessary. "The jurisdiction of every sovereign state extends
to the whole of its territory and to its own citizens in every part of
the world. The laws of a nation are rightfully obligatory on its own
citizens in every situation where those laws are really extended to
them. The principle is founded on the nature of civil union. It is
supported every where by public opinion, and is recognized by the
writers on the law of nations. Rutherforth in his second volume
(page 180) says: "The jurisdiction which a civil society has over
the persons of its members affects them immediately, whether they
are in their territories or not." (Chief Justice Marshall's speach in
the case of Jonathan Robins.) If the provision, securing the right to
demand a fugitive from justice, was only to operate where the laws
of New York were violated, then it was superfluous, as New York
might enact a law providing for his punishment if apprehended with-
in her territory. (2 R. S. 698, () 4.) That the clause was not
designed to provide only for the case of a citizen of one state tak-
ing refuge in any other state than the one of which he was a citizen,
is admitted by the governor of New York himself. "It has long been
conceded," he says, "that the citizens of the state upon which the
requisition is made are liable to be surrendered as well as citizens of
the state making the demand."

The correctness of the position taken by your committee is sus-
tained also by a solemn judicial decision of New York. In the mat-
ter of Clark, chief justice Savage declares: "With the comity of na-
tions we have at present nothing to do, unless prehaps to infer from
it that the framer of the constitution and laws intended to provide a
more perfect remedy; one which should reach every offence criminally
cognizable by the laws of any of the states; the language is treason, felo-
ny or other crime; the word crime is synoymous with misdemeanour,
and includes every offence below felony punished by indictment as an
offence against the public."

But admit that your committee is wrong in this; restrict the clause
as much as is contended for; admit that a former governor of New
York was wrong; that the chief justice of that state was wrong, and
that the present governor is right - admit all this, and your committee
humbly submits, that the answer of the lieutenant governor of Virgi-
nia to the governor of New York, on this head, is conclusive. He
says: "Is it true that the offence committed by Peter Johnson, Ed-
ward Smith and Isaac Gansey is not recognized as criminal by the
universal law of all civilized countries? They are charged with fe-
loniously stealing from John G. Colley, a citizen of this state, property
which could not have been worth less than six or seven hundred dol-
lars. And I understand, stealing to be recognized as a crime by all
laws himan and divine.: To this the governor of New York re-
plies: "It is freely admitted that the argument would be at an end if
it were as clear that one human being may be the property of ano-
there, as it is that sealing is a crime. On the contrary, however, I
must insist, with perfect respect, that the general principle of civi-
lized communities is in harmony with that which prevails in this
state, thatmen are not the subject of perperty, and of course that
no such crime can exist in countires where that principle prevails,
as the fleonious stealing of a human being considered as property."

The governor of New York thus resolves the whole controversy
into the question whether slaver can legally exist; and wheterh
slaves are to be regarded as property by the northern states of this
confederacy, in their intercourse with the southern. In this view of
the subject it assumes a consequence which it would not otherwise
possess, and which demans of the general assembly that ti should
speak in a manner that cannot be misunderstood.

That one human being may be the property of another, and that
laws making him such have been recognized by the universal consent
of all civilized nations, is a proposition which cannot be denied. Your
committee does not recollect a solitary civilized nation of modern
times which has not, within the nineteenth century, recognized slaves
as property. Not to swell this report by an enumeration of other in-
stances, your committe will refer to the case of Great Britain - a
nation more fastidious, and your committee might add, more fanati-
cal upon this subject than any of the other nations of the earth. It
has only been within a few years that she has abolished slavery with-
in her own juridiction; and in a late treaty with this country she re-
cognized them as property in the most emphatic manner, by making
pecuniary satisfaction to the owners of such as were abducted by
her forces during the late war. But what is still more to the purpose,
every state in the Union except Massachusetts, at the time of the
adoption of the constitution, tolerated slavery, and admitted that one
man could be the property of another. Indeed it has only bee with-
in a few years that New York has abolished slavery within her own
limits. Until that time, even by her own laws, one man might be
the property of another. The states not only in their separate indi-
vidual capacity recognized property in slaves, but in the most solemn
manner, in their collective capacity, in the adoption of the federal
constitution, did they declare that recognition. That constitution not
only recognizes slavery, but it guardantees and protects the master's
right of property in his slave. In proof of this your committee need
only refer to the third paragraph of the 2d section of the 4th article
of the constitution. But for that clause a slave who should escape