The third ground of objection which has been advanced against our main proposition, is the doctrine said to have been decided by the Supreme Court of the United States, (as in the case of Prigg against the State of Pennsylvania,) that according to recognized international laws, a nation which does not hold slaves itself is not bound to recognize property in slaves in neighbouring nations, when those slaves come into its borders; and that if a rendition is claimed, it must be asked of comity, or of special stipulation, and not as of international right. The answer is clear and facile. The States of the American Union were, initially, as independent nations to each other; and then they were all slaveholding. Each one of them recognized in its own citizens the right of property in slaves; and therefore, if the above doctrine be granted, they could not then, by international law, refuse to recognize it in nations living at amity with them. Again: When they passed out of this condition of absolute independence, into that of federal union, their relations, so far as they ceased to be international, were regulated exclusively by the constitution; and by this constitution the property in slaves was expressly recognized, the rendition of fugitive slaves was expressly required of all the States, whether themselves holding slaves or not; and all the common territory of the Union was originally slave territory until it became free territory by sovereign State action. Plainly, in such a case as this, the international law of Europe has no application, against historical facts and actual constitutional enactments. The sophism of this plea in the mouths of anti-slavery men, the uniform assertors of consolidation doctrines, would make the States, in the same breath, independent nations, in order that the international law of a different hemisphere may be applied against them, and also subject provinces of an anti-slavery nation, in order that they may be stripped of that equality of rights, belonging to sovereign constituent parties in a confederation. CHAPTER IV. HISTORY OF EMANCIPATION. The motive for introducing the historical facts contained in this chapter is the following: That the credit of Virginia as a slaveholding State is relatively illustrated by the conduct of her partners in the confederation touching the same matter. Virginia never passed a general act of emancipation; on the contrary, she forbade masters to free their slaves within her borders, unless they also provided for their removal to new homes. But what was it which the Northern States actually did? The general answer to this question cannot be better given than in the words of the Hon. A. H. H. Stuart of Virginia, in his Report to the General Assembly, as chairman of its joint committee on the Harper's Ferry outrages. He says: "At the date of the declaration of our national independence, slavery existed in every colony of the Confederation....