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EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, Nov. 12th, 1840.

SIR,

I have had the honour already to transmit to your excellency a copy of certain proceedings of the general
assembly of Virginia, in relation to the refusal of the governor of New York to surrender certain free negroes on the
demand of the executive of this state. These fugitives from justice were charged with having stolen within the ju-
risdiction of Virginia, a slave, the property of a citizen of this state, and with having fled to the state of New York.
By one of the resolutions of the general assembly of this state, I am instructed "to open a correspondence with the
executive of each of the slaveholding states, requesting their co-operation in any necessary and proper measure of re-
dress which Virginia may be forced to adopt." I forbore to address your excellency on this subject, until I had again
and again endeavoured to induce the executive of New York to retract a position which is deemed utterly untenable,
and destructive of the clear, acknowledged constitutional rights of the other states. The final and deliberate purpose
of the governor of New York, to adhere to so gross and dangerous a perversion of the federal constitution, having
been at length announced to me, I have no no alternative, and in compliance with the resolution of the general as-
sembly, must invoke on behalf of Virginia, and of every slaveholding state, the earnest and effectual consideration by
your state of a subject which so nearly and vitally affects our common interests.

The report and resolutions which have been communicated to your excellency will apprise you of the general
views entertained in reference to the controversy, by the last general assembly of this state, and by the governor of
New York. Fortunately for the slaveholding states, the question involved has been so distinctly and emphatically set-
tled by the plain terms of the federal constitution, that it is impossible for the ingenuity or the prejudices of the human
mind to deny or evade our just demand, without doing manifest violence to that sacred instrument. The slaveholding
states stand now precisely where they stood when the constitution was submitted by the convention of 1787, and rati-
fied by all the states, claiming the same rights and no more, which every state then readily conceded to us; and it seems
to me that the question which has been forced on us by the refusal of the governor of New York to abide by the con-
stitution, is one on which we can have little to apprehend from the justice and patriotism even of the non-slaveholding
states. It is not a question whether slavery ought originally to have been introduced, or should continue to exist in
this country. If it were many of the states whose policy on this subject differs from our own, could not fail to recol-
lect their agency in introducing the present system of slavery, and the very recent periods at which some of them, and
particularly New York, have abolished it within their own borders. The question is, whether the constitution shall
continue to afford to the slaveholding states, that protection which was expected by us and designed by all the states.
It is well known that, though most of the states held slaves at the period when our Union was formed, yet the subject
of our slave population was the chief and most perplexing difficulty with the framers of the constitution. This was
then, as it is now , one of those subjects where it is easier to feel than to reason, where misguided passion may meditate
and accomplish more mischief than the judgment can redress, where the sacred names of philanthropy and religion
may be invoked by demons to cover the blood-stain of their impious and cruel designs.

The federal constitution has been voluntarily ratified by each of the states, and its provisions and all laws made in
pursuance of them, are the supreme law of every state. This instrument as a compact between the states, permitted
the importation of slaves from foreign countries for a specified time, and fixed the maximum rate of impost duties which
could be levied on them by congress. That time expired in 1808, though the states had generally ceased to avail them-
selves of this stipulated right long before. Still the right was guaranteed to each of the original states by the letter of
the constitution.

The second section of the first article of the federal constitution recognizes slaves as an element of taxation and re-
presentation. The second section of the fourth article contains but three provisions, which are as follow :

"1. The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states.

"2. A person charged in any state with treason, felony or other crime, who shall flee from justice, and be found in
another state, shall, on demand of the executive authority of the state from which he fled, be delivered up, to be re-
moved to the state having jurisdiction of the crime.

"3. No person held to service or labour in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in conse-
quence of any law or regulation therin, be discharged from such service or labour, but shall be delivered up, on claim
of the party to whom such service or labour may be due."

Here the right of the master to his slave as property is distinctly recognized, not only in the state where the slave
" is held to service or labour," but for the purpose of reclaiming and recovering him, in any other state to which the
slave may escape. The federal constitution does most distinctly and unequivocally recognize the existence of slavery
in the United States ; and congress, by their act of February 1793, have provided specific means for the security of
the master's rights throughout the states.

The governor of New York has refused to surrender these fugitives from justice on the demand of Virginia, be-
cause they are charged with having stolen a slave, and because slavery is not now recognized by the laws of New York.
With the same propriety and for the stronger reason, he might, and no doubt would, (if the case had been left by the
act of congress within the sphere of his official discretion,) refuse to permit a fugitive slave to be recovered by his
master within the jurisdiction of New York. In fact the principles assumed by the governor of New York in this
case, would lead to the subversion of the federal compact, and leave each state in its intercourse with the others at per-
fect liberty to prescribe for itself and its co-states any rule which its caprice or prejudice might dictate. If the federal

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