--one, the power
to take the slaves from their masters, the other, the power to take the
property of the United States to pay for them.

If Congress cannot constitutionally impair the right of private
property, or take it without compensation, it cannot constitutionally,
_legalize_ the perpetration of such acts, by _others_, nor _protect_
those who commit them. Does the power to rob a man of his earnings, rob
the earner of his _right_ to them? Who has a better right to the
_product_ than the producer?--to the _interest_, than the owner of the
_principal_?--to the hands and arms, than he from whose shoulders they
swing?--to the body and soul, than he whose they _are_? Congress not
only impairs but annihilates the right of private property, while it
withholds from the slaves of the District their title to _themselves_.
What! Congress powerless to protect a man's right to _himself_, when it
can make inviolable the right to a _dog_? But, waving this, I deny that
the abolition of slavery in the District would violate this clause. What
does the clause prohibit? The "taking" of "private property" for "public
use." Suppose Congress should emancipate the slaves in the District,
what would it "_take_?" Nothing. What would it _hold_? Nothing. What
would it put to "public use?" Nothing. Instead of _taking_ "private
property," Congress, by abolishing slavery, would say "private property
shall not _be_ taken; and those who have been robbed of it already,
shall be kept out of it no longer; and since every man's right to his
own body is _paramount_, he shall be protected in it." True, Congress
may not arbitrarily take property, _as_ property, from one man and give
it to another--and in the abolition of slavery no such thing is done. A
legislative act changes the _condition_ of the slave--makes him his own
_proprietor_ instead of the property of another. It determines a
question of _original right_ between two classes of persons--doing an
act of justice to one, and restraining the other from acts of injustice;
or, in other words, preventing one from robbing the other, by granting
to the injured party the protection of just and equitable laws.

Congress, by an act of abolition, would change the condition of seven
thousand "persons" in the District, but would "take" nothing. To
construe this provision so as to enable the citizens of the District to
hold as property, and in perpetuity, whatever they please, or to hold it
as property in al