I have already stated;
the condition, namely, that no right of individuals to the soil should
be construed to be transferred, but only the jurisdiction. But, no
doubt, all rights of property ought to be duly respected by Congress,
and all other legislatures.

And since the subject of compensation to the owners of emancipated
slaves has been referred to, I take occasion to say, that if Congress
should think that a wise, just, and politic legislation for this
District required it to make compensation for slaves emancipated here,
it has the same constitutional authority to make such compensation as to
make grants for roads and bridges, almshouses, penitentiaries, and other
similar objects, in the District. A general and absolute power of
legislation carries with it all the necessary and just incidents
belonging to such legislation.

Mr. Clay having made some remarks in reply, Mr. Webster
rejoined:--#/

The honorable member from Kentucky asks the Senate to suppose the
opposite case; to suppose that the seat of government had been fixed in
a free State, Pennsylvania, for example; and that Congress had attempted
to establish slavery in a district over which, as here, it had thus
exclusive legislation. He asks whether, in that case, Congress could
establish slavery in such a place. This mode of changing the question
does not, I think, vary the argument; and I answer, at once, that,
however improbable or improper such an act might be, yet, if the power
were universal, absolute, and without restriction, it might
unquestionably be so exercised. No limitation being expressed or
intimated in the grant itself, or any other proceeding of the parties,
none could be implied.

And in the other cases, of forts, arsenals, and dock-yards, if Congress
has exclusive and absolute legislative power, it must, of course, have
the power, if it could be supposed to be guilty of such folly, whether
proposed to be exercised in a district within a free State, to establish
slavery, or in a district in a slave State, to abolish or regulate it.
If it be a district over which Congress has, as it has in this District,
unlimited power of legislation, it seems to me that whatever would stay
the exercise of this power, in either case, must be drawn from
discretion, from reasons of justice and true policy, from those high
considerations which ought to influence Congress in questions of such
extreme delicacy and importance; and to all these consider