What I assert is, that neither the number of slaves nor the magnitude of the interests involved 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 property, with just compensation made, for public use.  And it will not be argued that a claim of one inhabitant of the United States to the service of another, whether for a term of years or for life, is property which has been constitutionally exempted from such appropriation.  It is evident, that, if a claim to the service of a slave cannot constitutionally be so taken and cancelled, neither can the claim to the service of an apprentice.