wer to force them back,--that _now_ they have no power to recover, by
process of law, their slaves who escape to Canada, the South American
States, or to Europe--the case already cited in which the Supreme Court
of Louisiana decided, that residence "_for one moment_," under the laws
of France emancipated an American slave--the case of Fulton, _vs._
Lewis, 3 Har. and John's Reps., 56, where the slave of a St. Domingo
slaveholder, who brought him to Maryland in '93, was pronounced free by
the Maryland Court of Appeals--these, with other facts and cases "too
numerous to mention," are illustrations of the acknowledged truth here
asserted, that by the consent of the civilized world, and on the
principles of universal law, slaves are not "_property_," but
_self-proprietors_, and that whenever held as property under _law_, it
is only by _positive legislative acts_, forcibly setting aside the law
of nature, the common law, and the principles of universal justice and
right between man and man,--principles paramount to all law, and from
which alone law derives its intrinsic authoritative sanction.]

But waiving all concessions, whether of constitutions, laws, judicial
decisions, or common consent, I take the position that the power of
Congress to abolish slavery in the District, follows from the fact, that
as the sole legislature there, it has unquestionable power _to adopt the
Common Law, as the legal system within its exclusive jurisdiction_. This
has been done, with certain restrictions, in most of the States, either
by legislative acts or by constitutional implication. THE COMMON LAW
KNOWS NO SLAVES. Its principles annihilate slavery wherever they touch
it. It is a universal, unconditional, abolition act. Wherever slavery is
a legal system, it is so only by _statute_ law, and in violation of
common law. The declaration of Lord Chief Justice Holt, that "by the
common law, no man can have property in another," is an acknowledged
axiom, and based upon the well known common law definition of property.
"The subjects of dominion or property are _things_, as
contra-distinguished from _persons_." Let Congress adopt the common law
in the District of Columbia, and slavery there is at once abolished.
Congress may well be at home in common law legislation, for the common
law is the grand element of the United States Constitution. All its
_fundamental_ provisions are instinct with its spirit; and its
existence, principles and paramount aut