But we turn from these considerations—­though the times on which we have fallen, and those towards 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 be taken for public use without just compensation.”  Each of the state constitutions has a clause of similar purport.  The abolition of slavery in the District by Congress, would not, as we shall presently show, violate this clause either directly or by implication.  Granting for argument’s sake, that slaves are “private property,” and that to emancipate them, would be to “take private property” for “public use,” the objector admits the power of Congress to do this, provided it will do something else, that is, pay for them.  Thus, instead of denying the power, the objector not only admits, but affirms it, as the ground of the inference that compensation must accompany it.  So far from disproving the existence of one power, the objector asserts the existence of two—­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.