be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labour may be due.[1]
New States. Formation of new States out of other States.§ 3. New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without the consent of the legislatures of the States concerned, as well as of the Congress.
Congress to have power to dispose of and make reulations respecting the territories or other property of the U.S.The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules an regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to prejudice any claims of the United States, or of any particular State.
Guarantee by the U.S. of a republican form of government to every State; to be protected from invasion, and against domestic violence.
Amendments to Constitution.§ 4. The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on application of the legislature, or of the executive, (when the legislature cannot be convened,) against domestic violence.
Art. V. The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress;No State, without its consent, shall be deprived of an equal suffrage in the Senate. provided, that no amendment, which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight, shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no State, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.
Debts &c., contracted before the adoption of the Constitution to be valid against the U.S.
The Constitution and laws of the U.S. or treaties, the supreme law of the land.Art. VI. All debts contracted, and engagements entered into, before the adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States, under this Constitution, as under the confederation.
This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land: and the judges, in every State, shall be bound thereby, any thing in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.
Oath and affirmation to the support of the Constitution.The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several State legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound, by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution;No religious test a qualification for office. but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.
Ratification of the Constitution.Art. VII. The ratification of the conventions of nine States, shall be sufficient for the establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the same.
Done in Convention, by the unanimous consent of the States present, the seventeenth day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand- ↑ Prigg v. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 16 Peters, 539. The clause in the Constitution relating to fugitives from labour, manifestly contemplates the existence of positive, unqualified right on the part of the owner of the slave, which no State law or regulation can in any way qualify, regulate, control, or restrain. Any law or regulation which interrupts, limits, delays, or postpones the rights of
The owner to the immediate command of his service or labour, operates pro tanto, a discharge of the slave therefrom. The question can never be how much he is discharged from; but whether he is discharged from any service by the natural and necessary operation of the State laws, or State regulations. The question is not one of quantity and degree, but of withholding or controlling the incidents of a positive right.
The owner of a fugitive slave has the same right to take him in a State to which he has escaped or fled, that he had in the State from which he escaped; and it is well known that this right to seizure or re-capture is universally acknowledged in all the slave-holding States. Ibid.
