ed can properly influence the judgment in determining
the just construction of a clause in the Constitution, or properly set
aside a fair deduction from the wording of that clause as to its true
spirit and intent. What I assert is, that the framers of the Constitution,
in studiously avoiding the employment of the word slave, undeniably
abstained from admitting into that instrument anything which the use of
that word might have implied. Therefore the Constitution does not
recognize the ownership of one human being by another. In it we seek in
vain any foundation for the doctrine declared by Chief-Justice Taney, that
persons held to service or labor for life are articles of property or
merchandise.

In one restricted sense, and only in one, is slavery recognized by the
Constitution of the United States: as a system under which one man may
have a legal claim to the involuntary labor of another.

Therefore the question, whether Congress has the constitutional right to
emancipate slaves, resolves itself into this:--Can Congress
constitutionally take private property for public use and destroy it,
making just compensation therefor? And is there anything in the nature of
the claim which a master has to the service or labor of an apprentice, or
of a slave, which legally exempts that species of property from the
general rule, if important considerations of public utility demand that
such claims should be appropriated and cancelled by the Government?

This is the sole issue. Let us not complicate it by mixing it up with
others. When we are discussing the expediency of emancipation and of
measures proposed to effect it, it is proper to take into account not only
State constitutions and State legislation, but also the popular conception
of slavery under the loose phraseology of the day, and public sentiment,
South as well as North, in connection with it. But when we are examining
the purely legal question, whether, under the Constitution as it is and
under the state of public affairs now existing, Congress has the power to
enact emancipation, we must dismiss popular fallacies and prejudices, and
confine ourselves to one task: namely, to decide, without reference to
subordinate constitutions or legislative action, what the supreme law of
the land--the Constitution of the United States--permits or forbids in the
premises.

It will be admitted that Congress has the right (Amendments to
Constitution, Article 5) to take private prope