f peaceably assembling" violently
wrested--the rights of minorities, _rights_ no longer--free speech
struck dumb--free _men_ outlawed and murdered--free presses cast into
the streets and their fragments strewed with shoutings, or flourished in
triumph before the gaze of approving crowds as proud mementos of
prostrate law! The spirit and power of our fathers, where are they?
Their deep homage always and every where rendered to FREE THOUGHT, with
its _inseparable signs--free speech and a free press_--their reverence
for justice, liberty, _rights_ and all-pervading law, where are they?

But we turn from these considerations--though the times on which we have
fallen, and those toward which we are borne with headlong haste, call
for their discussion as with the voices of departing life--and proceed
to topics relevant to the argument before us.

The seventh article of the amendments to the constitution is alleged to
withhold from Congress the power to abolish slavery in the District. "No
person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due
process of law." All the slaves in the District have been "deprived of
liberty" by legislative acts. Now, these legislative acts "depriving"
them "of liberty," were either "due process of law," or they were _not_.
If they _were_, then a legislative act, taking from the master that
"property" which is the identical "liberty" previously taken from the
slave, would be "due process of law" _also_, and of course a
_constitutional_ act; but if the legislative acts "depriving" them of
"liberty" were _not_ "due process of law," then the slaves were deprived
of liberty _unconstitutionally_, and these acts are _void_. In that case
the _constitution emancipates them_.

If the objector reply, by saying that the import of the phrase "due
process of law," is _judicial_ process solely, it is granted, and that
fact is our rejoinder; for no slave in the District _has_ been deprived
of his liberty by "a judicial process," or, in other words, by "due
process of law;" consequently, upon the objector's own admission, every
slave in the District has been deprived of liberty _unconstitutionally_,
and is therefore _free by the constitution_. This is asserted only of
the slaves under the "exclusive legislation" of Congress.

The last clause of the article under consideration is quoted for the
same purpose: "Nor shall private property he taken for public use
without just compensation." Each of the