abolish slavery in the
District, froth Art. 1, sec. 8, clause 1, of the constitution: "Congress
shall have power to provide for the common defence and the general
welfare of the United States." Has the government of the United States
no power under this grant, to legislate within its own exclusive
jurisdiction on subjects that vitally affect its interests? Suppose the
slaves in the District should rise upon their masters, and the United
States' government, in quelling the insurrection, should kill any number
of them. Could their masters claim compensation of the government?
Manifestly not; even though no proof existed that the particular slaves
killed were insurgents. This was precisely the point at issue between
those masters, whose slaves were killed by the State troops at the time
of the Southampton insurrection, and the Virginia Legislature; no
evidence was brought to show that the slaves killed by the troops were
insurgents; yet the Virginia Legislature decided that their masters were
_not entitled to compensation_. They proceeded on the sound principle,
that a government may in self protection destroy the claim of its
subjects even to that which has been recognised as property by its own
acts. If in providing for the common defence the United States
government, in the case supposed, would have power to destroy slaves
both as _property and persons_, it surely might stop half-way, destroy
them as _property_ while it legalized their existence as _persons_, and
thus provided for the common defence by giving them a personal and
powerful interest in the government, and securing their strength for its
defence.

Like other Legislatures, Congress has power to abate nuisances--to
remove or tear down unsafe buildings--to destroy infected cargoes--to
lay injunctions upon manufactories injurious to the public health--and
thus to "provide for the common defence and general welfare" by
destroying individual property, when it puts in jeopardy the public
weal.

Granting, for argument's sake, that slaves are "property" in the
District of Columbia--if Congress has a right to annihilate property in
the District when the public safety requires it, it may surely
annihilate its existence _as_ property when public safety requires it,
especially if it transform into a _protection_ and _defence_ that which
as _property_ periled the public interests. In the District of Columbia
there are, besides the United States' Capitol, the President'