Thus, the sovereignty of the District of Columbia, is shown to reside solely in the Congress of the United States; and since the power of the people of a state to abolish slavery within their own limits, results from their entire sovereignty within the state, so the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District, results from its entire sovereignty within the District.  If it be objected that Congress can have no more power over the District, than was held by the legislatures of Maryland and Virginia, we ask what clause in the constitution graduates the power of Congress by the standard of a state legislature?  Was the United States constitution worked into its present shape under the measuring line and square of Virginia and Maryland? and is its power to be bevelled down till it can run in the grooves of state legislation?  There is a deal of prating about constitutional power over the District, as though Congress were indebted for it to Maryland and Virginia.  The powers of those states, whether few or many, prodigies or nullities, have nothing to do with the question.  As well thrust in the powers of the Grand Lama to join issue upon, or twist papal bulls into constitutional tether, with which to curb congressional action.  The Constitution of the United States gives power to Congress, and takes it away, and it alone.  Maryland and Virginia adopted the Constitution before they ceded to the united States the territory of the District.  By their acts of cession, they abdicated their own sovereignty over the District, and thus made room for that provided by the United States constitution, which sovereignty was to commence as soon as a cession of territory by states, and its acceptance by Congress furnished a sphere for its exercise.

That the abolition of slavery is within the sphere of legislation, I argue, secondly, from the fact, that slavery as a legal system, is the creature of legislation.  The law by creating slavery, not only affirmed its existence to be within the sphere and under the control of legislation, but equally, the conditions and terms of its existence, and the question whether or not it should exist.  Of course legislation would not travel out of its sphere, in abolishing what is within it, and what was recognised to be within it, by its own act.  Cannot legislatures repeal their own laws?  If law can take from a man his rights, it can give them back again.  If it can say, “your body belongs to your neighbor,” it can say, “it belongs to yourself, and I will sustain your right.”  If it can annul a man’s right to himself, held by express grant from his Maker, and can create for another an artificial title to him, can it not annul the artificial title, and leave the original owner to hold himself by his original title?