Excerpt from Speech of Mr. Smyth, on the Restriction of Slavery in Missouri: Delivered in the House of Representatives of the United States, January 28, 1820
Can you stipulate for the regulation of the press; for the establishment of religion; or for a power to appoint militia officers? You cannot; for in these respects, also, the rights of the states are declared by the constitution. And if you cannot stipulate for the exercise of a power prohibited, you cannot stipulate for the exercise of a power withheld.
Will you not admit that you cannot stipulate for a power to appoint militia officers in a new state? You will: because that power is specially, and in direct terms, reserved to the states. All powers not granted, are reserved, in general terms. If the power is reserved, is it not the same, whether it be reserved in direct or in general terms? It is the same. A power reserved to the states or to the people, either in direct or in general terms, you cannot exercise, without committing an act of usurpation.
The case supposed, of stipulating for power to appoint militia officers, illustrates the danger which might arise to freedom, by forming a new class of states, over which this government should possess powers different from those which it exercises over the old states. A consolidated government might be established over such new states. At the time of the revolution it was a cause of complaint against the British King, that, by acquiring Canada, and establishing a despotic government therein, he endangered the liberty of the American Colonies. - The people would never have adopted the constitution had they supposed that Congress was to exercise over the new states powers different from those granted by the constitution.
The legislative power of every state is originally coextensive. Each state, by the constitution, commits an equal portion of its legislative power to Congress; and all the residue is reserved to the states, (unless prohibited to them,) or to the people. The only powers of this government are given by the constitution. The powers granted are to be exercised over every state; and the powers reserved, are retained by every state. In Pennsylvania and in Virginia, the power to legislate respecting slavery is in the legislature. In Ohio and Indiana that power is in the people, who have denied it to their legislatures. No power has been delegated to Congress to legislate on that subject. The constitution provides that, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."
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