1845 SLAVERY. Massachusetts Sues Louisiana and South Carolina for Arresting Northern Black Citizens.

Very good original printing of a Bill put before Congress by the State of Massachusetts in which it is argued that Louisiana and South Carolina have “infringed upon and violated the personal and commercial rights of certain citizens of Massachusetts, solely on account of their origin, race, and color, while pursuing lawful business within those States.”

The case involves two black businessmen who were in the respective states in the pursuance of their normal work, but were detained and arrested for pursuing their lawful professions.

Massachusetts argues, “our citizens may have what the Constitution so clearly and emphatically declares they shall have – “all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States,” and asks “the general government to provide, by appropriate legislation, for the full and fair protection of the personal and commercial rights of all her citizens, as secured by the Constitution and laws of the Union, whenever, in pursuit of their lawful callings, they may be found within the limits of any of her sister States. This is her claim on the general government. She makes this claim because she has surrendered to that government all right to enforce it by her own power and authority, and she will never abandon this claim while her constitutional relations to the general government remain, or until the claim itself is acknowledged and fulfilled.”

Massachusetts – Louisiana and South Carolina. Resolutions of the Legislature of Massachusetts in Relation to Louisiana and South Carolina. December 15, 1845. Read, and laid upon the table. Ritchie & Heiss. 1845. 4pp.

Very good. Removed from a larger sammelband at some point, some foxing. Clean and crisp. No copies on the market at the time of cataloguing.