The preamble of the United States’ Constitution declares it to be a fundamental object of the organization of the government “to ESTABLISH JUSTICE.”  Has Congress no power to do that for which it was made the depository of power?  CANNOT the United States’ Government fulfil the purpose for which it was brought into being?

To abolish slavery, is to take from no rightful owner his property; but to “establish justice” between two parties.  To emancipate the slave, is to “establish justice” between him and his master—­to throw around the person, character, conscience, liberty, and domestic relations of the one, the same law that secures and blesses the other.  In other words, to prevent by legal restraints one class of men from seizing upon another class, and robbing them at pleasure of their earnings, their time, their liberty, their kindred, and the very use and ownership of their own persons.  Finally, to abolish slavery is to proclaim and enact that innocence and helplessness—­now free plunder—­are entitled to legal protection; and that power, avarice, and lust, shall no longer gorge upon their spoils under the license, and by the ministrations of law!  Congress, by possessing “exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever,” has a general protective power for ALL the inhabitants of the District.  If it has no power to protect one man, it has none to protect another—­none to protect any—­and if it can protect one man and is bound to protect him, it can protect every man—­all men—­and is bound to do it.  All admit the power of Congress to protect the masters in the District against their slaves.  What part of the constitution gives the power?  The clause so often quoted,—­“power of legislation in all cases whatsoever,” equally in the “case” of defending the blacks against the whites, as in that of defending the whites against the blacks.  The power is given also by Art. 1, Sec. 8, clause 15—­“Congress shall have power to suppress insurrections”—­a power to protect, as well blacks against whites, as whites against blacks.  If the constitution gives power to protect one class against the other, it gives power to protect either against the other.  Suppose the blacks in the District should seize the whites, drive them into the fields and kitchens, force them to work without pay, flog them, imprison them, and sell them at their pleasure, where would Congress find power to restrain such acts?  Answer; a general power in the clause so often cited, and an express one in that cited above—­“Congress shall have power to suppress insurrections.”  So much for a supposed case.  Here follows a real one.  The whites in the District are perpetrating these identical acts upon seven thousand blacks daily.  That Congress has power to restrain these acts in one case, all assert,